15 Dec 2014

The Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) is working on a plan to remedy the defects at some houses at the Gerald Estate in Francistown.

Answering a question in parliament, the Minister of Lands and Housing Mr Prince Maele, said the affected houses were situated on a black cotton soil that was susceptible to expansions and contractions that cause subsidence and structural cracks.

The Member of Parliament for Francistown East Mr Buti Billy wanted to know whether the minister was aware that six years ago BHC constructed houses in Gerald Estate in Francistown but some were still vacant.

He also wanted to know how many of the houses are not occupied and why, whether it is not a loss of revenue and waste of government resources, and what will be done given that some of them are being vandalised. Minister Maele further said the BHC had investigated the cause of the defects, the initial investigation of which revealed that for some houses the contractor might not have complied with the engineering design.

He said the report was shared with the contractor and it was agreed that a competent independent consultant be mutually appointed to investigate the cause.

“The said consultant was appointed and has done all the requisite investigations which are due to be reported and discussed by mid December 2014,” the minister said.

Minister Maele said there was no doubt that there was loss of revenue due to non-occupation or sale of the said houses.

He however said it was important to note that it was in the nature of the construction industry that some projects would be affected by latent defects that have the potential to deny the developer the opportunity to benefit from occupation of developed units.

‘Invariably, in such cases, there will be loss of revenue,” he said.

Minister Maele however said such revenue losses should be balanced with the overriding need to protect the safety of occupants. 

“In such situations this cannot be construed to be a waste of resources,” he said.

The minister further said unfortunately the location of the houses adjacent to the bushy area renders them prone to vandalism .

He said a total of 45 housing units of the i54 houses with defects have been vandalised, noting however that BHC had since put in place measures to mitigate the vandalism of the housing units by engaging a security firm to provide a 24-hour security to serve as a deterrent to unauthorised intruders.

Earlier Minister Maele told parliament that on the 28^th November 2008, BHC engaged local contract to develop 545 detached housing units at Gerald Estate in Francistown

The project was divided into three separate contracts of 168, 179 and 198 housing units.

He said by August 2010 all the three contracts were delivered and at the time of handover, patent defects had been addressed by contractor.

With time, he said, it became evident that number of houses developed latent defects that had to be attended to. 

Out of the 545 units developed, a total of 364 units have been absorbed by the market, thus leaving 181 housing units unoccupied.

The minister further said out of these 181 units, 27 were in good condition and were being marketed for either sale or rental while 154 were affected by defects. ENDS