05 Aug 2014

The Minister of Lands and Housing, Mr Lebonaamang Mokalake says the mandate of Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) remains the same as it was at the organisation’s establishment in 1970.

Speaking in Parliament, on August 4, Minister Mokalake said the organisation’s mandate was to provide for housing needs of government and local authorities, and provide, assist, and make arrangements for other persons to meet the requirement of providing for those housing needs.

“Providing affordable housing for absorption by the market has always been central to the BHC delivery of housing units. However, the challenge has been and continues to be in financing the housing schemes to ensure that housing units are affordable,” said the minister.

He explained that the 2011 population housing census indicated that the national housing demand was around 137 737 since households of the same number were living in housing units that were of unacceptable standard.

He said there was a need to address the gap in the provision of housing for people who earn above the highest limit for Self-Help Housing Agency (SHHA) and below the level banks were prepared to finance.

“For this group, access to finance is a challenge because of the cost of construction coupled with unaffordable cost of finance. My ministry does not have precise figures of this group. 

However, the need to address this gap is recognised as demonstrated in, among others, the development of the national housing strategy,” the minister said.
The MP for Shoshong Mr Phillip Makgalem

ele had asked the minister to state the founding objectives of BHC against the current mandate in the provision of housing to Batswana, as well as the national housing demand outside government. Ends