09 Oct 2017

Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, Mr Nonofo Molefhi has underscored the need for governments to come up with housing policies that strive for affordable and sustainable homes for all.
Mr Molefhi was speaking at the World Habit Day commemoration in Jwaneng recently under the theme: Housing Policies; Affordable Homes. He said this year’s theme required all stakeholders to come together and strategise on how to deliver adequate and affordable housing.

“This theme therefore calls for a major paradigm shift in housing policy processes with greater emphasis on plans that deliver more affordable homes. This shift requires all stakeholders in the housing sector to associate themselves with the processes of housing policies and strategies that are geared towards the delivery of adequate and affordable housing for all,” he said.

He noted that even though government continued to come up with initiatives that were intended to improve access to affordable homes, such efforts came at a high cost to government. He noted that despite concerted efforts to allocate residential areas, most of them remained undeveloped due to lack of essential services such as water and electricity.

He said since the cost of land servicing was high, there was need to review the policies and come up with sustainable ones that could help ease government burden. He said this would result in effective efforts in as far as land allocation was concerned. He also underscored the need to change the practice of having different habitat which have proved to be costly to provide social services. He said it was easier to provide services when people were not too scattered.

Furthermore, Mr Molefhi implored all stakeholders to fight the existence of slums, which were common around urban areas. This, he noted could only be achieved through clear frameworks whose intentions were to ensure sustainable urban development.
“It is important that key stakeholders cordially work together to create a conducive environment that would enable everyone to operate within clearly defined and agreed frameworks. It can only be through such frameworks that we could be able to provide affordable homes, reduce possibilities for emergence of slums

and ensure sustainable urban development,” he noted.
For his part, Jwaneng town clerk, Mr Dick Kalantle acknowledged that affordable housing for all was still a challenge in Jwaneng, despite efforts by various organisations to provide institutional housing.

“In the previous three years, Jwaneng Town Council has constructed and purchased 67 houses for employees and development of new houses is still ongoing. Botswana Housing Corporation constructed 75 houses and is currently constructing 72 that will house employees from different institutions. Further, Debswana is currently building 52 houses for their employees and finalising plans to expand their campsite.” ENDS