Modern building tech to spur housing delivery programme

Government has adopted the use of new building technologies to build 100 blocks of flats per month per site under the national housing delivery programme, according to National Housing and Social Amenities Minister, Daniel Garwe.

Garwe told Parliament recently that this was part of Government efforts to meet the National Development Strategy goal number 1 of delivering over 200 000 houses by 2025.

Housing is a major challenge for many workers in Zimbabwe and majority of them spend a fortune paying for accommodation with the money being demanded in United States of America dollars by most tenants.

This has piled pressure on workers who in turn demand more from their employers and in the process increasing the cost of doing business for companies.

“To deliver those, we have now migrated from the traditional use of brick and mortar to the use of new technologies, which allows us to deliver a minimum of 100 blocks of flats per month per site.
“We have already employed some contractors. It has already gone through tenders. We are now starting that programme in September and October,” he said during the Question and Answer session last Wednesday.

“The first phase has five provinces and we will be delivering 500 blocks of flats every month going forward.”
The housing delivery target will also be met through combined efforts and interventions by private players.
Zimbabwe, which has a housing backlog of around 2 million, has made significant strides in providing houses as recent statistics from the 2022 population census showed that about 60 percent of Zimbabweans own the houses they live in, with 83 percent of those dwellings being modern.
On top of its own housing delivery programmes, Garwe said the government would continue to facilitate and encourage private developers such as insurance and pension funds to develop more housing units.
“Housing delivery is a collective responsibility. People should not look at Treasury as the only source of financing for housing delivery,” he said.
The national housing delivery programme is also targeting to deliver over 470 000 housing units in the long term.
The demand for housing has risen over the years, in tandem with population growth, and in a bid to accelerate the provision of housing, the government has adopted several strategies to ensure access to housing by the majority of citizens.
Besides building new settlements, the government has adopted the strategy of regularising informal and dysfunctional settlements across the country such as Caledonia, Harare South, Hatcliffe North, Gimboki South in Mutare and Cowdray Park in Bulawayo.
These are places were most low income earners live. The government has also adopted the urban regeneration and renewal project as part of its strategy to provide decent housing to citizens.
It is targeting the highly populated old suburbs of Mbare in Harare, Sakubva in Mutare and Makokoba in Bulawayo.-ebusinessweekly