By Professor Gangfu Yang
WINDHOEK – Shelter, food and clothing are regarded in Chinese culture as three fundamental parts of basic human rights and play a pivotal role in social harmony and stability.
Considering its importance in nation building, the Chinese government has made relevant policies and invested huge amounts of capital to realize and secure these human rights of Chinese citizens, including price control mechanisms and subsidized housing projects for the low-income earners. The UN will kick off its post-2015 debate on Sustainable Development Goals this year. The dominant themes in this UN discussion will surely be jobs, economic growth, infrastructure development and poverty alleviation. These material benefits to satisfy our individual rights to property, food and clothing should be at least treated with equal consideration as our civil rights, if not take precedence over political rights. Shelter is a severe challenge to many countries, especially to African countries. To resolve the housing problems, we cannot only rely on traditional technologies or systems. We need to change our culture and mindset. At the opening of the Cabinet meeting on 11 Feb 2014, President Hifikepunye Pohamba said, “We must come up with a sustainable solution,” to address the high and unaffordable housing prices. The current Mass Housing Programme by the Namibian government is a clear indication that the welfare of Namibians is under caretaking on par with their political rights. The international communities have been seeking and adopting sustainable solutions to shoulder the heavy load of housing and also to deal with the resource crisis human beings are facing. Alternative construction methods are known as the most efficient, economic and green methods to counteract the pressure of sheltering.
Among the alternative construction methods are the Lightweight Steel Structure (LSS) System and Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) Block System. These systems have been widely applied across the world, namely in Germany, Russia, Canada, America, China and some African countries as well. Fifteen African countries have offered welcoming hands to embrace the LSS System already. To comply with her sustainable solution policy, China has engaged herself positively and actively in alternative construction methods for her potential urbanization projects across the nation. There are five manufacturing bases of the LSS system in China building millions of houses for citizens. The LSS system, as matter of fact, flourishes in China’s sheltering culture. We are pleased to see that the LSS system is also rooted on Namibian soil.
A demonstration house of the LSS System has been constructed by Afrina Property Developer cc at the Habitat Research Centre in Katutura, making Namibia the 16th country to employ this technology in housing construction. However, it is not easy to apply the alternative construction systems with regard to home loans and municipality approval in Namibia. People are just biased and prejudiced about new technologies, which pose itself as a severe obstacle to social and economic development in Namibia. According to relevant Namibian laws, regulations and laws, a client must submit building drawings for approval from the municipality before he/she will get a home loan approval from a local commercial bank. It will be again difficult to meet the bank requirements, because there are too many procedures to follow and too many things to do. In some cases, you will not be able at all to satisfy the bank/municipality to issue you an approval, especially when an alternative construction method is involved in residential construction projects.
For instance, though the AAC Block system enjoys a high reputation for infrastructure development across the world, the municipality will only give a green light to it when you are in possession of a certificate thereof from a Cape Town institution. To make it worse, a demonstration house of such system must be first erected for testing in Cape Town before this institution will approve it. I fail to understand why Namibia, an independent country for 24 years, must still observe South African laws or regulations regarding alternative construction methods, which have already received a warm welcome as a sustainable solution for housing across the world? Namibia has a huge housing backlog, a difficult problem for the government to address. The best way to “come up with a sustainable solution” to stop the high and unaffordable housing prices lies in alternative construction methods, which in fact have been chosen by some institutions in their tenders for infrastructure development. Go for alternative construction methods!
Professor Gangfu Yang is involved in the development of alternative construction methods.