Malawi Housing Corp embarks on rehabilitation of dilapidated houses
Amid public sector reforms that government is currently undertaking, the Malawi Housing Corporation has from last month embarked on massive maintenance works and demolition of dilapidated houses in the country.
The exercise follows an interface meeting Malawi Housing Corporation, Ministry of lands officials and Malawi Housing Corporation tenants had in February this year.
Among the issues that transpired during the meeting were maintenance work of the existing dilapidated houses and construction of additional houses to address acute shortage of good and affordable houses to the low and middle income earners in all the districts.
Speaking after inspecting some of the houses that are undergoing maintenance work at Naperi in Blantyre, the Minister of Lands, Housing and Rural development, Atupele Muluzi expressed satisfaction with the progress of the work.
He said it is government’s wish to see to it that Malawians have decent and affordable houses to meet people’s expectations.
“I must appreciate the steps that MHC is undertaking by rehabilitating the houses that were in bad state.
“In addition, the corporation has also lined up plans to demolish some houses that have gone beyond rehabilitation. These are commendable reforms as they will help to improve the quality of houses in the country,” said Muluzi on Tuesday.
MHC Chief Executive Officer, Eunice Napolo said it remains the responsibility of the Corporation to make sure that it is providing decent houses that are meeting tenants’ expectations.
Napolo said the corporation has so far earmarked 2800 dilapidated houses for rehabilitation against the 6,000 houses.
“In the exercise, MHC will also demolish those houses that are beyond maintenance works and construct modern ones,” she said.
However, Napolo was non committal to disclose the amount that has been injected for the exercise saying: “the corporation will communicate the expenses once the exercise is done.”
Tenants Association of Malawi Chairperson, Malvern Kaumphawi said he was delighted that the corporation has heeded to their calls of rehabilitating some of the dilapidated houses in the country.
“This is a welcome development and as an association, we would like the corporation to speed up the construction of additional 2,500 houses for others to benefit,” he said.
Kaumphawi also lobbied for a home ownership scheme which if put into effect would ensure that the long lived tenants are offered an opportunity to buy the MHC house at an affordable rate.
Annually, the country needs 21,000 decent and affordable houses to be constructed to cater for the growing demand of people according to research by the Habitat for Humanity.
Currently, there are over 100,000 people awaiting the corporation to offer them houses against the existing 6500 houses
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I too support the idea of offering such dilapidated houses to the sitting tenants because others have benefited from the same scheme before. You can not waste money to destroy an already existing structure and build another one instead. This is like double expenditure. Please let the fellow Malawian who have lived 10 years plus in such houses to own them at an affordable price.Do not let politicians hijack this so that they buy such houses instead.
Allowing sitting in tenants to buy MHC houses is the best the Malawi government through the Ministry of Lands would do. Malawi government let people own houses. Sell them at an affordable prices. I do not live in an MHC house but it is a very good idea that any government would apply common sense. There are examples in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya. The government enable its people to own houses. Atupele you are doing a good job, please help your fellow Malawians. You are the only person people think you could help in this issue.