• 2 comments
• Print
• Email
• Tweet
• Reset

Tanzania has embarked on the plan to build 15,000 houses to curb the severe housing shortage in the country.

Nehemia Mchechu, director general of the state-owned National Housing Corporation (NHC), told Sabahi that the housing shortage has been growing at an alarming rate, and his corporation decided to do something about it.

"The shortage is growing at the rate of 200,000 houses per year," Mchechu told Sabahi.

Mchechu said NHC decided to take a loan from a consortium of nine financial institutions worth 165 billion shillings ($104 million) to start the housing project.

"We cannot remain bystanders. My promise is to transform NHC to better serve Tanzanians," Mchechu said after the loan signing ceremony in Dar es Salaam on Monday (July 2nd). "We have to do something about this unacceptable situation. To start, we are building 15,000 houses in the next three years."

By 2015, NHC will build 15,000 houses in Dar es Salaam, Kigoma, Arusha and Dodoma. Work already started in Dar es Salaam in April at Mindu Street, near Muhimbili National Hospital.

CRDB Bank, Ecobank, BancABC, National Microfinance Bank, Commercial Bank of Africa, Tanzania Investment Bank, Azania, the Local Authorities Pension Fund and Shelter Afrique provided funds for the loan, with each financial institution providing between 4 billion and 35 billion shillings ($2.5 million-$22 million).

"Housing shortage is a major problem for our country," said Susan Omari, public relations manager for National Microfinance Bank. Citing statistics from the United Nations Population Division, Omari said the deficit is likely to be as high as 3.8 million housing units by now.

"That research indicates that population growth rate in towns in 1980 was 14.8%. In 2005, it grew to 37.5% and it projects that by 2015, population growth in towns will be 46.8%," she told Sabahi.

Helping Tanzanians become homeowners

Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Anna Tibaijuka said 23 billion shillings ($15 million) of the loan will be used to build houses for low-income citizens.

"I congratulate the banks and the financial institutions for accepting to extend this loan," Tibaijuka said at the signing ceremony. "This is community service per se. In this way, financial institutions are helping Tanzanians to live safer lives."

Tibaijuka, former executive director of the UN Human Settlements Programme, also commended Mchechu for the company's efforts to build more houses.

Charles Kimei, executive director of CRDB Bank, told Sabahi that his bank extended the loan to NHC as a part of his corporation's commitment to social responsibility.

He told Sabahi the bank is prepared to lend more money to individuals intending to buy houses built by NHC, and that the bank will issue mortgages to allow purchasers to make monthly payments and own their homes.

Dunstan Kaijage, 33, of Dar es Salaam, praised NHC's decision to take the loan and provide low-income earners the opportunity to own homes.

"We are told NHC is going to talk to employers who will commit to remit money deducted from our salaries to the bank that extends the mortgage to us," Kaijage told Sabahi.

"This system is the easiest and the cheapest way for ordinary workers to own a house," he said.