BY SHARON BUWERIMWE NATIONAL Housing and Social Amenities minister Daniel Garwe yesterday said government was adopting new house construction technologies to address the national housing backlog that stands at two million.
Addressing a Press conference in Harare yesterday, Garwe said government would be moving away from the brick and mortar system and adopting new methods to enhance housing delivery.
“We want to deliver 220 000 housing units by 2025 in terms of National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1). We are aware that using the brick and mortar strategy will take us more than 20 years to achieve our objectives. So, government has migrated from brick and mortar strategies to the application of new technologies for housing delivery,” Garwe said.
“We developed some technologies; we consulted some countries where these developments have been applied in Dubai, South Africa, to mention a few.
“We floated tenders for developers to come and join the government in the delivery strategy. Those tenders have also gone through the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe and they have approved them. So there are a number of projects taking place right now,” he said.
The National Housing minister also said government would soon launch a plant to manufacture green materials to mitigate against climate change effects.
“There is also the construction of a plant to manufacture green materials in the country. We have funding for that and very soon we are going to be witnessing the construction, completion and launch of that plant which manufactures green materials to mitigate the issues of climate change. The private sector will not be left behind,” he added.
Last week, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency said the country was facing a housing crisis that left nearly half of its urban population of almost 5,7 million people living in rented accommodation.
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