Thu, 22 Jun 2017 09:42:09 +0000
By SANDRA MACHIMA
AN eight-member delegation of technocrats from the National Housing Authority (NHA) and Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure Development are in Turkey to understand and learn how the Housing Development Administration of that country has successfully implemented its robust social and low income housing model.
NHA acting chief executive officer Waicha Ndhlovu said the objective of the visit to Turkey was to learn best practices in the provision of affordable housing and how Turkey’s Housing Development Administration had grown to be self-sustaining without depending on funding from the Turkish government.
She said NHA wanted to encourage the Turkish institution to invest in affordable housing in Zambia and in one of the projects that the authority planned to carry out.
Ms Ndhlovu said it was encouraging that the institution in that country was willing to share the information that NHA had been looking for, saying that would be vital for NHA to learn how to set up a resource centre with the assistance of the Turkish housing institution.
Ms Ndhlovu said the delegation had learnt that the housing model implemented by the Turkish housing institution was the direct opposite to the one in Zambia because the organisation planned all the settlements before construction.
“This is even working out cheaper because they would have looked at the type of land, geology of the land, they also would have seen who it is that lives on the land.
“If it is land that is inhabited, they speak to the people before they can start the urban renewal or the transformation of the land,” she said.
According to first secretary for Press at the Zambian mission in Turkey Jerry Munthali, social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, non-profit organisations, or by a combination of the two, usually with the aim of providing affordable housing to the people.
Ms Ndhlovu said NHA still had a lot to learn how the Turkish housing institution was implementing its social housing model, especially provision of affordable housing to widows, orphans and retirees literally for free through collaboration with government and the private sector.
She also said the delegation had learnt that NHA could work with the Central Statistical Office (CSO) to carry out a housing census to have an accurate understanding of the housing needs of the people, especially for low income citizens.
And Housing Development Administration president’s counselor Hilmi Tutar said his institution had constructed 800,000 housing units over the last 14 years with a yearly production capacity of 50,000 units.
