BHC TO CONSTRUCT 68 HOUSES IN NGAMILAND Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) will construct 68 houses in the North West District under the Self Helping Housing Assistance (SHHA) turnkey project. The project will be undertaken in four constituencies; Maun East, Maun West, Ngami and Okavango and is expected to be completed in 16-24 weeks. Speaking at a ground breaking ceremony on August 29, BHC chief executive officer, Mr Reginald Motswaiso, said each constituency had been allocated 17 SHHA turnkey houses and BHC had been mandated with the project. He said the turnkey project was previously coordinated by different councils but in 2010, government introduced the single housing authority and took SHHA from local authorities to BHC hence they are responsible for all housing implementation programmes. Mr Motswaiso however said the P60 000 fixed price per housing unit was a challenge because prices for building materials differed from one district to the another due to geographical location. In areas like Lobatse and Ramotswa, he said one housing unit was built at a cost of P94 000 noting that in Ngamiland the costs would be higher. Mr Motswaiso said in Maun a housing unit would be constructed at the tune of over P115 000 while in Okavango and other surrounding areas it would costs P136 000. He assured beneficiaries that despite the increase in costs, they are entitled to pay fixed amount of P60 000. In addition he said the arrangement for applications has not changed as BHC is mandated to construct the houses and hand over the houses to the council. He also indicated that local contractors would be engaged to carry out the projects and assured beneficiaries that there would be regular supervision to ensure that everything goes well. “BHC has a good record in house construction so our building standard is the same. Council officials would be allowed to do final inspection after completion”, he added. Mr Motswaiso also urged stakeholders involved in the construction of the SHHA houses to show dedication to the programme for it to achieve its objectives. He called on beneficiaries to take ownership of the project noting that they should be monitoring every step to ensure their expectations are met at the end of the project. BHC CEO noted that most of the people who have been approved for the turnkey housing project fail to fulfill the conditions laid out for them. To address the issue of contractors, Motswaiso said that they have decided to move the tender from A to B category noting that local contractors registered with PPADB would be engaged. He said in the past the experienced challenges where contractors failed to complete the work on time. For his part, North West Council chairman, Mr Lathang Molonda applauded BHC for commencing the project noting that the importance of this programme on the lives of Batswana is very high and unquestionable. He said the project had delayed and yet the council continued to receive and approve applications on monthly basis and no single housing unit was built. He said currently the district has more than 68 applications and urged the housing authority to speed up the project. Mr Molonda said councillors were also not happy with the delay as they indicated that they had always done well in the provision of housing through the SHHA programme, the situation had deteriorated since the take-over by BHC. He encouraged beneficiaries to pay back their loans since money is interest free. He said currently the Maun Administrative Authority is owed over P3.4 million while Okavango Sub District is owed over P60 million. (BOPA)
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 07:35:22 +0000
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