Kalumba Salvation Mundia
With 34 years of freedom, independence and sovereignty, Namibia celebrated its 1990 political victory over the brutal South African apartheid regime in a regular yet memorable fashion.
However, after three and a half decades of annual celebrations, the patriotic euphoria that flooded the country at the handing over of power in 1990 has been impossible to replicate, especially against a declining economy and rising cost of living.
Although significant, the utility of past political achievements in a post-colonial Namibia faces peculiar economic challenges, chief among which is the housing crisis. The housing scarcity has been a major concern through the past three presidential administrations and appears to be soaring beyond manageable limits despite persistent governmental interventions.
From the dawn of independence until 2022, housing prices have increased with an average of 8.7% annually and according to a World Bank estimation, the national housing backlog now stands at 300 000 units, with some experts speculating that it could be 500 000.
When one breaks down these World Bank findings against the recently revealed population census, the housing to population ratio falls to 1:10, in simpler terms, every unit is expected to house at least 10 persons. Furthermore, the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia further revealed that at least 80% of the country’s urban population now lives in shacks and informal settlements.
In the final analysis, the reality of Namibia’s housing development process indicates that for every brick house constructed there are four shacks that counter. In 2022, the Land of the Brave emerged as the second most unequal country in the world according to the World Bank Gini Index, lagging behind its seemingly immovable neighbour South Africa. The pair has held on to these positions to the present day. The income inequality further relegates, not just the country’s lower class but the middle class as well, from the race towards purchasing a home. It is in the light of these factors that the World Economic forum presents that 90% of Namibians do not qualify for a housing mortgage. This simply means that, in the event that the existing housing backlog is reversed, and the Namibian government develops over 300 000 housing units while all financial variables remain the same, 90% of the country’s population still would not be able to afford them.
Beyond statistical representations, the truth about Namibia’s housing service delivery cuts deep, majority of Namibians simply cannot afford housing anymore. This begs the question, how did this promising Sub-Saharan country that was once bursting with economic growth and characterised with peace and prosperity become overtaken by homelessness? How did a country with one of the lowest populations and second lowest population densities in the world get caught up in service delivery paralysis? Concessions have to be made that the housing scarcity has survived every presidential socio-economic land delivery strategy, including the 1992 Build Together Programme, 1998 National Housing Policy (NHP), 2013 Mass Housing Development Programme and the 2016 Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP). One of the key, if not the main reasons why the demand for housing has superseded its supply in urban areas is due to the rapid urbanisation, coupled with rigid residential land service delivery by local authorities, and the riddle of the country’s housing crisis is explained. Broadly stated, the soaring of house prices and the mushrooming of informal settlements can be attributed to the inability of municipalities to keep up with their growing population. Frustrated bureaucratic processes, inadequate funding and unavailability of land cripple service delivery throughout every municipality, leading to municipal inefficiency in housing supply. For example, according to a City of Windhoek council meeting and agenda of 5 August 2021, NHE had a waiting list of more than 90 000 applicants nation-wide.
Of these, 20 000 (22%) were in Windhoek. It was further revealed that from 2010 to 2020, only 400 applicants were successfully allocated housing in Windhoek, as a percentage point, less than 2% of the applicants were successful over a 10-year period. Broadly stated, service delivery under the above-mentioned circumstances is well-nigh stagnant if not completely nonexistent. The other reason often brought forth by local authorities for delays in serviced land delivery is the cost of land servicing.
With an average servicing cost of N$650 per square metre in the capital, the task of servicing residential land may often prove too expensive, especially in rocky, mountainous and steep gradient places like Windhoek. The cost of labour rises exponentially due to the sophistry of earth moving equipment and construction machinery. Furthermore, the City of Windhoek revealed that another contributing factor is the unavailability of land, Windhoek is nestled inside high mountains on every side and the gradual expansion experience has led to higher and higher biddings of remaining land, forcing land prices to rise. These factors partly provide an explanation for price discrepancies between the capital and other towns. For example, the average price of land in a middle-income suburb in Windhoek is 11 times higher than what it would cost in Keetmanshoop.
Land at the value of N$208 000 in Windhoek would cost N$18 500 in Keetmanshoop, N$76 000 in Swakopmund and N$26 000 in Katima Mulilo, a disheartened overwhelming difference. As it stands, Windhoek, the capital city, is the epicentre of unaffordable housing. Couple the high cost of land with construction costs, bank interest charges, transfer costs, tedious bureaucratic processes and gradually a vivid reason emerges. When taking into consideration the magnitude and depth of Namibia’s housing crisis, it is reasonable for one to think that it now requires swift and decisive interventions. With due regards to factors that are substantially difficult to resolve and may lay beyond the governance realm of influence, such as construction costs, there are a couple of problems that appear self-inflicted. The insistence of involvement by municipal bodies in the construction of housing units should be channelled towards land servicing as opposed to the actual mass construction of houses. This simply means the government should channel more funds in land service, reason being, it is much cheaper to service residential land and sell it to able buyers than it is to build houses for half a million people. Even when one looks at it mathematically, Namibia has a backlog of 300 000 units and construction cost ranges between N$300 000 to N$600 000 for a standard three-bedroom house, it would prove too expensive at best and of trivial effect at worst, for the government to fill this gap through construction. Also, should the burden of housing be placed on “middleman” the expenditure would choke out service. Instead, privatised residential land purchasing and self-construction would be a faster, more effective and less expensive approach.
As opposed to dishing out construction tenders, municipalities should channel their attention towards servicing residential land, subject housing applications to a standardised housing criteria and allow able buyers to self-construct their own properties. Furthermore, the magnitude of the crisis is at a point where it necessitates an exponential increase in municipal capacity for approval processes.
With the current minimal construction rate nationwide, it is still slow for one to simply apply for housing plan approval. Should the volumes of applications increase, which is imminent due to population projections, service delivery will be drowned.
A rapid expansion of human resources appears inevitable for Namibian municipalities to lubricate bureaucratic stagnation. It is either municipalities keep up with growing demands or urban populations are ungovernable to expand.
In the final analysis, amid a wide range of political and socio-economic problems, Namibia’s housing scarcity has stood the test of time. The unavailability of housing has seen a gradual disappearance of the “middle-class” and absolute homelessness of the “low-income houses” if there are any houses at all. For as long as the reality of homelessness does not meet a sense of institutionalised urgency, it might be perpetual and worsen as the years go by.
* Kalumba Salvation Mundia is a Public Management Honours Degree (Political Science) graduate and real estate agent.