Kilimanjaro, MOSHI: DEPUTY Minister for Land, Housing and Human Settlements Development, Mr Geofrey Pinda, has urged all seven Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in Kilimanjaro Region to allocate areas which will be used by the National Housing Corporation (NHC) to build low-cost houses to help curb the scarcity of residential and business premises in the region.
The deputy minister made the remarks over the weekend during his meeting with Kilimanjaro Region’s land sector employees, including land officers, land surveyors, urban planning officers as well as employees of NHC Kilimanjaro office.
“The sixth phase government is focused on developing the national economy, including that of individuals, which leads to the increasing demands for residential and commercial premises, so it is good that all the LGAs set aside areas for the construction of the low-cost houses to meet the demands,” he said.
He further said that, the availability of the newly constructed houses through the projects implemented by the NHC will enable citizens to have reliable and quality residential houses along with good houses for businesses that continue to grow every day.
“The LGAs will also benefit from the projects by increasing income through various means including various taxes due to the fact that the housing projects will increase businesses in the districts where the LGAs are located in”, he added.
Earlier, when presenting the NHC’s regional report to the Deputy Minister, the Manager of NHC Kilimanjaro Region Mr Juma Kiaramba said that one of the challenges that the organisation faces in carrying out its duties is the lack of land for the construction of houses for various needs.
“There have been many applications of people who are in need of residential and business houses, whereby due to that situation the regional NHC office has identified areas suitable for new housing development projects,” he noted.
He added, “The areas include those which has NHC houses that are dilapidated as well as plots owned by the institution located in the region.”
Mr Kiaramba continued to say that the challenge of getting land apart from those owned by the NHC for the implementation of affordable housing projects is big due to the high price of plots.
“Due to this challenge, the NHC came up with the idea of asking councils and other institutions in Kilimanjaro region to enter into contracts with the institution (NHC) for the construction of houses and business premises on the areas owned by those councils and the institutions,” he said.
Mr Kiaramba continued to say that, NHC within the region collected a total of 2.78bn/- as rent payments from its various tenants, whereby he said that the collections were equal to 100.56 per cent of the region’s rent collection’s projection.
Mr Kiramba continued to say that, during that period, NHC spent a total of 150m/- for the renovation of 86 buildings owned by the institution in Kilimanjaro region.
“The renovation of these buildings was implemented using the corporation’s internal workforce, which contributed to reducing the costs compared to if the renovations would have been done through external contractors”, he said.
He added, “The aim of carrying out this renovation is to ensure that NHC tenants within the region continue to live in quality houses; in continuing with this renovations programme, the institution in Kilimanjaro region is expected to spend more than 130m/- for the renovations of 15 buildings located within Moshi town centre.”
Source : Daily News
