Of the 325 homes at National Housing, Namungoona only 100 are occupied, do you know the problem?

National Housing, Impala Estate, Namungoona has 325 homes. It was launched by Rt. Hon Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda on 30th August, 2016.

Surprisingly, of the 325 about 100 homes are occupied, the rest; that is 225 homes have been idle for the last 5 years. The Drone Media investigates the cause of this discrepancy. According to sources, there is incompetence in management.

Given the location of the estate, the managers should have changed their marketing strategies to suit the demands of the would be customers. Simple logic shows that they are making losses.  According to sources, a new tenant/occupant is required to pay sh12million for the whole year before they are allowed to sleep there.  This act is barring many Ugandans from sleeping in such houses, but it is violating the government policy.

According to the 2016 National housing policy by the ministry of lands, housing and urban development, “The housing situation in the country is characterized by inadequate housing in terms of quality and quantity both in rural and urban areas with a housing deficit of about 1.6 million housing units, out of which 210,000 units are needed in the urban areas.”

“In order to reduce on the housing backlog in urban areas, NRM promise to provide land and physical infrastructure to private real estate developers,” President Museveni pointed out in the party’s manifesto, adding that the NRM would also “capitalize National Housing Corporation to be a lead agency in providing housing in urban areas.”
However, the funding did not materialize and the Corporation has been making do with funding from commercial banks.

According to sources at Impala Estate, the cost of the apartments which first came on the market in May 2016, was later reduced from sh295 million to sh250 million per unit. “The move aimed at enabling more Ugandans get decent accommodation and at a competitive market price.  However, this has not been achieved at the moment.

Managers blame it on the death of Muammar Gaddafi in October 2010. They say the Government of Uganda which owns 51 per cent of the company and the Government of Libya which, through the Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP), owns 49 per cent of company, was to capitalize the company. Although the United Nations in 2011, lifted sanctions it had slapped on Libya in the run up to the killing of the country’s former strongman, the managers are still waiting on a dead Gaddaffi.

The last annoying and the most barring factor of these houses is, they pay commercial interest rates. Those are passed on to the customers which makes the cost of the units higher.