WINDHOEK – Houses constructed under government’s mass housing scheme will go for a monthly instalment of as little as N$610 and a maximum of N$4300, official information obtained by New Era shows.
The low instalments, which will differ according to the type of house, are mostly as a result of government’s proposed subsidies of between 40 and 60 percent of the total cost of the houses.
The instalment figures are calculated in line with a home loan with a base rate of 9.75 percent.
This information is contained in a report the National Housing Enterprise (NHE) recently submitted to the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development as an update on the company’s activities.
Houses within the D1, Core 5 and Core 6 categories will be subsidised by government, some by up to 60 percent.
A house in the D1 category will cost about N$160 912 and with a government subsidy of 60 percent (worth N$96 547), the owner will only need a home loan of N$64 365, which will bring the monthly instalment to a mere N$610.51.
A D1 category house measures 32 square meters, while the biggest house constructed under this scheme will measure 68 square meters. The biggest house will cost N$391 636, according to NHE projection, and with an instalment of N$4 309.10 per month.
Houses measuring between 44 and 68 square meters will not be subsidised by government, but will still be sold for a song, compared to current exorbitant fees charged for house by the country’s commercial banks.
New Era understands that land subsidy will be 100 percent for all houses under mass housing – for social and conventional houses.
NHE currently has 53 000 people on its waiting list of Namibians looking to buy houses and who earn N$5000 per month or more.
Government is yet to announce the qualifying criteria for beneficiaries of social houses, although only first-time home owners will be considered. Social houses’ owners may not re-sell those houses until at least after 10 years.
As of September this year, N$263 million has been pumped into the mass housing scheme. Overall, N$3.195 billion have been allocated to phase 1 of the project, under which 10 043 houses are to be build.
NHE plans to have completed 813 houses by end of this month, of which 485 will be ready to be handed over to government while the remaining 328 will not be ready for handover because they are not connected to municipal services yet.
NHE officials are said to be frustrated by government’s decision to task local authorities to service land for mass housing projects, saying this is creative unnecessary bureaucracy.
As such, the NHE argues, only 179 houses were ready to be handed over to government by end of September.
“Sadly, 221 houses are currently completed [but] cannot be handed over and by 30 November 2014, a total of 612 houses will be completed but not ready for handover,” the company stated in the report.
Many local authority councils have not yet started with servicing land and their virtual silence has created fears that some of them might have spent the allocated money into their own operations.
The mass housing projects are spread over 27 local authorities across the country. NHE was appointed as government’s execution agency for mass housing. Mass housing will be executed in phases and phase 1, under which the current activities are executed, will see 10 043 houses being completed within 24 months, according to the original plan. The first phase ends on March 31, 2016.
“The biggest challenge so far is the unavailability of serviced [land], contrary to what was promised by the local authorities at the beginning of the project,” NHE says.
“Swakopmund is the biggest example of this, and unless this is resolved urgently many projects will be compromised and the noble housing targets will not be achieved.”
By Toivo Ndjebela