The Minister of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba, has said the government needs sh350b to construct the long-awaited low-cost houses for all.

She said this money includes sh88b for the capitalization of the National Housing and Construction Company Limited.

Nabakooba told New Vision on Thursday (May 11) that these houses will address the country’s deficit, which currently stands at 2.4 million housing units, of which 210,000 are in urban areas and 1.395 million in rural areas.

The minister said she had already presented this figure of sh350b to Parliament in her ministerial policy statement for the financial year 2023–24.

She noted that the acute housing deficit that Uganda is facing arises from a significant mismatch between the demand and supply of housing.

“This grand housing deficit is contributed to by the annual deficit of 284,000 arising from average annual urban and rural demand for housing at 150,000 and 194,000 against an annual supply of 60,000. The few supplied are largely informal, and the few formal ones are exclusively for the high end,” she said.

Nabakooba also noted that 96% of Ugandans cannot afford the cheapest typical house formally constructed by a developer at sh183m.

“At a median income of sh220, 000 per month for the urban folk, and sh168, 000 per month for the rural folk, the majority (76%) of Ugandans can only afford housing units in the range of sh12m-24m,” she stated.

Habitat for Humanity, a housing organization, estimates that about 900,000 housing units in Uganda are below standard.