Uganda will need more decent housing units in near-future

Sep 04, 2014

Uganda will need over three million decent housing units to accommodate a projected 48 million people by the year 2020, a new report indicates.


By Andrew Masinde & Violet Nabatanzi   
                          

KAMPALA - Uganda will need over three million decent housing units to accommodate a projected 48 million people by the year 2020, a new report indicates.

It is estimated that 50,000 housing units are coming up every year. The current housing deficit however is 200 per annum.

The report on prioritization of the right to adequate housing was released by Shelter and Settlement Alternatives: Uganda Human Settlement Network (SSA: UHSNET) on Wednesday.

Its findings indicate that Uganda has about 6.82 million households living in 6.2 million housing units with an average household size of five people (2012 estimate).

On a nationwide scale, the statistics translate into 1.1 households per housing unit, which results in a housing backlog of 710,000 housing units.

Of the existing housing units, the study shows, about 900,000 housing units are substandard houses, meaning structures that are not fit for human habitation. This makes a total national housing deficit of about 1.6 million housing units, of which 211,000 are in urban areas and 1,395,000 in rural areas.

It is estimated that Kampala city alone has a backlog of over 100,000 housing units with population growth rates currently estimated at 3.4%.

It is also projected that by the year 2020, the housing units of Uganda will have risen to 8.9 million amid worries that majority of Ugandans in both rural and urban areas do not have access to adequate housing.

However according to Eddie Nsamba Gayiiyi, a consultant on land policy and land tenure, many Ugandans are still residing in swamps while others have remained homeless.

 “When you see people getting into swamps it’s not their choice, they would love to go elsewhere. Let’s not look at them as outcasts, they have been evicted somewhere, they are just helpless,” he says.

He speaks of the need for government to create employment opportunities for people and get them out of poverty so they can live a decent lifestyle.

Meanwhile, Lawrence Byansi, the coordinator of Mukono Multipurpose Organization, urges government to establish a policy on housing, as that should reduce the cost of building decent houses.

“The Members of Parliament should act very fast and put in place this policy, because we cannot expect the ministry of finance to finance something which has no policy,” he opines.

Isaiah Ssasaga, who is the vice chairman of the parliamentary government assurance committee supports government on evictions of people who encroach on public land, maintaining that they hinder development.

“If government has been good to people who have been encroaching on the public land time and again and now it is asking them to vacate, they should do so for development purposes,” says Ssasaga, also MP for Budadiri East.

According to the ministry of land’s Ministerial Policy Statement FY 2013/14 and FY 2014/15, housing is not among the government’s key priorities, evidenced by the low national budgetary allocation which was only 0.020% and 0.025% in 2013/14 and 2014/15 respectively.

However, it should be noted that housing development is classified as one of the primary growth centre’s under the National Development Plan.

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