BHC Fights For Autonomy

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Monday September 3, 2007 00:00

 

At a meeting with Members of Parliament (MPs) recently, BHC Chief Executive Officer, Reginald Motswaiso urged the legislators to consider amending the BHC Act, which was last amended in 1994. 'In order for the corporation to operate more efficiently, it has become imperative for the corporation to diversify its revenue base and it has done this by taking on jobs from government departments and other agencies as well as undertaking commercial developments. 

However, in order to operate efficiently under these changed circumstances, it has become apparent that some sections of BHC Act need amending to vest some powers in the board of directors rather than in the minister, so as to allow for speedy responses,' he said.  Among the decisions the BHC wishes it could make without the minister's approval are the raising of rentals and acquiring loans from financial lending institutions. The last time BHC increased rentals was in 2003, which Motswaiso felt has left BHC far below the market price. The corporation faces serious challenges of collection of rentals and instalments from clients who bought houses through the Tenant Purchase Scheme (TPS) and Step Ownership Schemes (SOS) and has introduced salary stop orders and direct debits for reliability.

The corporation is currently owed P9.3 million whilst arrears on TPS and SOS are P7.5million. 'These have reduced significantly, as compared to three years ago when they stood at P22 million and P44 million respectively,' Motswaiso said.  The CEO said that they encourage defaulters to communicate their problems with the corporation before it could resort to legal action.

Meanwhile, BHC has managed to complete 635 houses as part of its target of 3,400 housing units during the National Development Plan Nine (NDP9), which runs until 2009.  'In line with the government objective of promoting home ownership, BHC has, over the last three years, enabled 1,945 Batswana to own homes by buying houses from the corporation,' Motswaiso said. He added that the corporation sells houses only to Batswana and citizen owned companies. 

The corporation has suspended the TPS and SOS schemes to clean up customer records and collect arrears and upon re-introduction, only first time owners will be given priority.  'At present our TPS and SOS loan book is populated by a cross-section of customers: some are first time buyers; some are multiple home owners while some are speculative buyers.  When we re-introduce these instalment schemes in the future we will be more focused, deliberate and discriminative,' Motswaiso declared. BHC has a rental stock of 10, 000 housing units of various costs. It spent P120 million on the recently completed houses in Block 7 in Gaborone. The corporation also intends to build 900 housing units during the 2007/08 financial year across the country.