Nuusita Ashipala
Oshakati
Oshakati is expected to construct low-income houses on the 978 fully serviced plots that were handed over to the town council by the Minister of Urban and Rural Development Sophia Shaningwa.
The handing over of the serviced plots took place on Monday.
The 978 erven at five extensions at Ehenye are part of 1,371 erven under the mass urban and land servicing programme at the town.
It cost N$140 million for the plots to be serviced over a period of 18 months. The minister further said the government will not allow the economic situation to define what can or cannot be achieved and therefore will continue to strive towards working smart, creating smart partnerships and finding smart solutions towards land and housing problems.
It is for that reason that the town expects to fully complete the servicing of another 148 residential plots. Shaningwa said the handing over of the plots is a true demonstration of the government and the ruling’s party’s commitment towards land delivery to the most affected members of society.
“It is through projects such as this one that we see the efforts that the Government of the Republic of Namibia and the Oshakati Town Council are making in ensuring that the land and housing needs in Namibia are addressed,” said Shaningwa. While commending the Oshakati Town Council for successfully servicing the plots within the specified time frame, Shaningwa said the ministry wants to continue seeing more serviced land as well as more low cost housing delivery in the whole country. “Accelerating serviced land delivery and access to low cost housing must be a benchmark in every town. Indeed, we would like to continue to ensure that the process of acquiring serviced land in Namibia should be equitable and done in a transparent manner.”
The minister called on all stakeholders to join forces to ensure that more projects of this nature are established so that the land issue does not remain at the core of issues in the country. She reiterated that with the same efforts in accelerating serviced land and housing delivery from all towns, Namibia can in the near future foresee land and housing being a problem of the past.
Governor of Oshana Region Clemens Kashuupulwa in a speech read on his behalf by his special advisor, Michael Mwinga, said the initiative of mass urban land servicing would improve the situation of basic housing and sanitation provision.