BHC to allocate 575 houses

KOPANO OLESITSE
Correspondent | Thursday September 3, 2009 00:00

Next week, BHC will allocate 30 houses at Selepa location and another 545 at Gerald Estates at the end of the month.

In an interview, BHC Estates Officer Jimmy Kabinga stated that only Botswana citizens are eligible for the allocation.

'For one to qualify for a house, we need a bank statement and marriage certificate if married. These houses will be offered either for sale or rental but priority will be to first time buyers. Second time applicants will only be accommodated when first time buyers have been serviced. But for first time buyers, we will require the written affidavit certified by the police stating that one has never been offered a house by BHC before.

'We recognise that there's a serious shortage of housing in the city but our problem is that we have a shortage of land. Of recent, we have been buying land mainly from government but now we wish to also buy from companies and even individuals, which we can use for the construction of our houses,' said Kabinga.

Kabinga outlined that all Selepa houses to be allocated are high cost while those in Gerald Estates are a mixture of low cost, medium cost and high cost houses.

'Our houses were supposed to be complete and allocated by April this year but because our contractors had some difficulties that included lack of building materials, the projects were delayed. Most of these delays were caused by the FIFA 2010 World Cup as there is a lot of construction work in South Africa because our contractors buy materials from South Africa. Construction work commenced last year, however,' added Kabinga.

He cautioned that the completion of construction does not always mean that houses are ready for occupation. 'We work in collaboration with other stakeholders such as the Francistown City Council (FCC), who have to inspect the environmental impact of our construction, the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) who have to inspect whether wiring was done properly, the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC)to inspect the pipeline and water works and many others. So this normally causes some delays.'