Judith Nabakooba, the Minister for Lands Housing and Urban Development
The ministry for Lands Housing and Urban Development with Habitat for Humanity have promised to build quality affordable houses in informal settlements in in different cities of Uganda.
The move is aimed at solving the problem of poor housing in slums where people can contract diseases like Tuberculosis due to poor ventilation and congestion while others live with animals due to poor housing and lack of space for a decent house.
Ronald Kasule, the Resource Development and Donor Engagement Specialist at Habitat for Humanity Uganda on Monday said that the Ministry has patterned with the Buganda Kingdom and the United Nations Development Program to plan for people living in informal settlements by building affordable and decent houses them.
Kasule also said that they are to sensitize ‘slum’ dwellers so that they can understand the benefit of the project and make sure that the people who are living in these areas are given priority in acquiring the proposed houses.
Judith Nabakooba, the Minister for Lands Housing and Urban Development said that there is need to find a lasting solution for informal settlements. She said that the policy provides for affordability inclusiveness and bringing all stakeholders on board because some of the slums belong to private people and others to the government.
Nabakooba also said that government is to build high-rise buildings to cater for low, middle income and high-income earners.
Robert Otim ,the director of Housing for Humanity said that they have developed procedures how the people will acquire these houses and they will be costing 18 million for the low-income earners and 35 to 50 million to the high-income earners.
However, the government has tried to develop several slums in Uganda but the projects fail to achieve the intended purpose of providing low-cost houses to the slum dwellers in Uganda. Namuwongo was one slum whose development benefitted rich people and it is now a high-end residential area.
Nabakooba said that one of the projects that had taken off and then later stalled was the Kasooli project in Tororo district after it turned out that the land on which houses were built is going to be used by the standard gauge railway.
In Uganda two of every three people don’t have a decent house and currently, the country is said to be faced with a housing deficit of approximately 2.4 million housing units.
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