Building costs stunt turnkey budget

Gothataone Moeng | Wednesday March 19, 2014 14:19

 

The Turnkey Development Scheme aims to construct houses at P60,000 per unit, but Mokalake said in areas where construction has started the cost per unit so far ranges between P76,865.93 and P93,634.44. The minister told Parliament this week that costs per unit are expected to rise even further than this in areas such as North West, Chobe and Ghanzi where building materials are even more expensive.  He was presenting his ministry’s budget proposals before Parliament on Monday.

In the 2013/2014 financial year, P60 million was disbursed to the Botswana Housing Corporation, which handles the scheme under its Single Housing Authority (SiHA), for the construction of 2,000 turnkey houses, 1,000 houses per year.

So far, out of the 731 houses awarded contractors, 649 have been started. Mokalake said the low number is due to “problems regarding the readiness of plots at the time of award”.

“So far 19 houses have been handed over in the North East District with another 62 houses in other districts nearing completion,” Mokalake said. The Turnkey Development Scheme is one of the ministry’s initiatives to facilitate the provision of completed housing for low-income beneficiaries. 

On other issues, Mokalake said his ministry has partnered with the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD). It will carry out a project to establish continuous operating reference stations to facilitate speedy land delivery through the use of GPS technology.  To date 23 out of 68 stations have been constructed, Mokalake said. 

He said the ministry continues to produce maps of various scales and themes as well as acquisition of satellite imagery and aerial photographs for various developmental needs.

Meanwhile, the ministry this year requested P735,966,710 for their recurrent budget.