KEETMANSHOOP – A Keetmanshoop family of 11 on Tuesday received a fully-furnished brick house from a construction company after their shack burned down over a week ago. 

On 4 July, the family lost all their belongings after a fire broke out at their shack in the Ileni informal settlement. 

Talking about the fateful day, Sarah Rooi, the owner of the erf where the shack was, said the family still has no idea what caused the fire. Rooi and her family have been living in the shack since 2008. 

The construction of the two-bedroom house cost Ti Khoen Omakhais (TKO) construction about N$80 000. 

The company also furnished the house and donated food bringing the total cost to N$100 000. 

Rooi extended gratitude towards the construction company. 

“I am very thankful, thank you to all the people that helped me, when I look into this house I just want to cry, that is how thankful I am,” said the 52-year-old domestic worker. 

At the handover ceremony, //Kharas governor Aletha Fredericks said housing has become a humanitarian crisis in Namibia as the housing backlog exceeds the provision of housing by a great margin. 

She added that amid Covid-19 and the global economic downturn, the situation is worrisome. 

“With the severely impacting climate change, the state of affairs necessitates the government to come up with innovative ways to speed up the provision of decent housing to the less privileged,” she said. 

Fredericks said even though the government is committed to addressing the housing crisis it needs partners from the private sector, civil society and many others to come on board and play an innovative and active role in order to solve the housing problem. 

The governor thanked TKO construction and all stakeholders that played a role in the building of the house. 

“Thank you for your consciously-motivated action and humanitarian gesture. I also call on other businesses to follow the good gesture as we have four other houses that burned down in this town recently,” she said. 

TKO construction director, Elize Dadi-Dausab said Government has put in place good programmes when it comes to delivering houses but those in the offices who are given the mandate to roll out such programmes are the ones delaying the delivery of the houses to the people. 

“I call on those in the offices to speed up the roll-out of these initiatives from the government. To the business community, obviously, every business has its own way of doing business but we should know that our business would not be standing or profitable if these individuals from these poor backgrounds do not come into our establishment and work for us. We have registered the companies, we are receiving the money but our employees are coming out of these shacks – so let’s look at how we can build houses for our employees,” she said.  -Nampa