THE high cost of building in Zambia has led to higher rentals and many Zambians are struggling to stay in decent housing areas because few can afford the rentals charged by most landlords.
Many formal workers are forced to find cheaper accommodation on the outskirts of cities, where rentals are high.
They spend huge amounts of money on transport because they cannot afford to live near the central business district.
Because of this problem, this week Zambia is hosting a three-day African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development, which started on Monday and ends today.
Accommodation woes have continued hounding many Zambians in Lusaka, Livingstone, Copperbelt and now are even fast growing in Solwezi district.
The growing population in these towns and districts has resulted in housing shortages, thereby making rentals escalate.
It is in this light that we welcome the call by Vice-President Dr Guy Scott that there is need for house empowerment to enable many Zambians to own houses.
Zambia has become an attractive investment destination over the past 10 years and urbanisation has continued to grow with the country maintaining its position of having the fastest growing population in the world.
This has put enormous pressure on housing and the reality is that everyone wants a piece of land but not everyone can have it.
Historically, Zambia has high interest rates and it is only in the past 10 years when macroeconomic fundamentals such as inflation and interest rates have started slowing down.
But despite this improvement, interest rates remain adamantly high and getting a mortgage is as difficult a challenge as the proverbial camel passing through the eye of a needle and very few manage this.
Therefore, as Zambia hosts the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development, it is very important that house empowerment is discussed.
Unfortunately, many people do not own houses because the cost of borrowing in Zambia has remained too high to enable people to build and own houses.
As Dr Scott said, Zambia still has a shortfall of 1.3 million housing units because the cost of building is very high and people are failing to go to the banks to borrow and build because of high interest rates.
We welcome government’s decision to study the reasons behind the high cost of borrowing because this will lead to resolving the problem of high cost borrowing.
Resolving the high cost of borrowing will enable people to have access to finance so that many more can borrow and build.
The population is growing fast. Land is becoming more scarce and expensive.
Addressing the cost of finance is one way of resolving the challenges of today’s housing needs.
We hope that by the end of the conference on housing and urban development, the delegates would have found a solution on finance for housing.
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House empowerment welcome
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