20 Jul 2018

Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, Mr Mmusi Kgafela says Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) has delivered 26 114 houses throughout the country since its establishment.

Responding to a question by Member of Parliament for Selebi Phikwe West, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse in Parliament on March 13, Mr Kgafela said the BHC was a parastatal established by an Act of Parliament of 1971, with a mandate to provide housing, office and other building needs of government and local authorities among others.

He noted that the corporation’s mandate was however expanded in 2012, in accordance with Presidential Directive Cab 20 (B) of 2010; which pronounced that implementation of government housing programmes be transferred to BHC to operate as single government’s Single Housing Authority (SiHA).

In compliance with the directive, he said, the corporation was to undertake construction of turnkey SHHA projects, Public Officers Housing Initiative (POHI), installment Purchase Scheme and youth housing.

He further explained that since the designation as a SiHA, the corporation had delivered 4 919 SHHA Turnkey units and 407 SHHA for public officers, while 465 POHI houses had also been delivered. He further indicated that to date, 16 439 houses had been sold and 9 675 rented out.

He noted that BHC had only sold houses to individual Batswana, Batswana owned companies, parastatals and government ministries and departments.

In addition, Mr Kgafela said in 2015, a deliberate decision was taken to build high-rise units, a flagship project dubbed in Tsholofelo Housing Project in Gaborone.

He said the initiative was borne out of the need to cater for low-income groups across the country. Mr Kgafela noted that the scheme targeted the youth and individual Batswana earning between P7 000 and P14 000 monthly.

He added that 75 per cent of the prospective buyers were under the age of 35.

“Going forward, the corporation intends to roll out the scheme to other towns in Botswana,” he said.

Minister Kgafela indicated that BHC did not get a subvention from the national budget, but raised capital from the private market for its projects other than SHHA programme.

He highlighted that the BHC was confronted with shortage of serviced land, which was critical in driving its primary mandate of provision of affordable housing.

“BHC operates in an environment of high construction costs occasioned by general inadequacy of requisite services,” he said.

In addition, the Minister Kgafela said ‘provision of housing requires the cooperation of various stakeholders such as those dealing with land, water, electricity, financing, planning amongst others.’

Mr Keorapetse had asked the minister to update Parliament on the year in which BHC was set up and its mandate, the number of housing units it had built since inception and the number of houses bought or rented by individual Batswana or companies. He also wanted to know how many youths had bought or were renting those houses. Ends