Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has said the resolution on the completion of 891 houses under the government’s Mass Housing Project remains in the hands of the courts.

Responding to Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) leader, McHenry Venaani’s letter regarding the unoccupied mass housing and occupation thereof on Monday, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the completion of 891 houses of which 505 are in Swakopmund, 362 in Windhoek and 24 in Opuwo, is hindered by legal disputes in which the court is issuing a lien to subcontractors over several houses.

The Mass Housing Development Programme (MHDP) was launched and implemented by

government in 2013 and was aimed at increasing investment in the affordable housing sector and significantly increasing the supply towards meeting the demand for housing in Namibia.

On 24 July 2022, in an open letter while addressing members of PDM’s central committee held in Okahandja, Venaani gave the Prime Minister 25 days to give people the unoccupied houses under the mass housing programme, stressing that close to 1 000 houses have been vacant for the past seven years while thousands of Namibians are homeless.

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila indicated that 4 130 housing units have been completed under the MHDP and handed over to beneficiaries in the various local authorities since the inception of programme, noting that there are no completed houses that are unallocated.

“Given the separation of powers the resolution of these disputes are in court, which, in terms of the Constitution are to operate autonomously from the executive. The government is, however, making all-round efforts to get these disputes resolved between involved parties in order to clear the way for these houses to be urgently completed and allocated to needy beneficiaries,” she noted.

She noted that the government has adopted and is in the process of implementing a comprehensive programme to resolve the housing problem to promote access to housing, especially for the low income segment.

Venaani, in his letter, had taken exception to government’s response to Namibia’s housing problem.

“Today the image of homelessness in Namibia consists of far more than simply people sleeping on the streets. Research about housing disparity in the country suggests that many individuals now live in informal, self-constructed houses,” he stressed.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency