ONGWEDIVA – The Helao Nafidi Town Council will this year focus on registering at least four of its extensions in order to avail residential plots as it strives to reduce its housing backlog.
Mayor at the town Eliaser Nghipangelwa said the registration of the extensions will also pave way for council to sell plots to its residents and thereby boost the council income.
At the moment, council has been unable to sell plots.
Nghipangelwa said council has only been availing plots to residents who had money readily available to construct whilst waiting for the registration to be completed.
“But we want our people to use their housing subsidy and those who wish to construct houses through bank loans to have access to acquiring plots. We have a lot of people who have applied for housing and those are the issues that we want to address this year,” Nghipangelwa said.
To reduce the backlog, the Shack Dwellers Federation is at the moment constructing houses for at least 10 of its members.
In addition to the houses under construction, the council has also further reserved about 100 plots for the federation to construct houses for its members.
“We just have to finalise some minor administration work before a go ahead for construction is given,” said Nghipangelwa.
In addition, two private developers are also expected to start constructing about 40 houses as a starter at the town.
Nghipangelwa said it was too early to tell whether council will this year continue with the project to construct houses for its low-income group.
The council last year forked out N$11 million from the council coffers to construct about 70 houses. Initially, council projected to build 200 houses, but had to reduce the number due to the limited budget.
The two-bedroom houses will cost N$180 000 and N$190 000 and were constructed by Small and Medium Enterprises.