Bring Back Mass Housing Projects

The man credited with transforming Singapore from a slum city state into one of the wealthiest countries in the world,

Lee Kuan Yew, once said the reason why African countries such as Nigeria and Congo remain poor despite their abundance of natural resources is a lack of political will.

To echo his sentiments, I would say the reason why 80% of Namibia’s urban population lives in shacks is because there has never been a genuine commitment from our leaders to address the issue.

This year, The Namibian reported that Namibia, through both the government and private developers, built only 15 198 houses over the past eight years. This is merely a drop in the ocean, considering Namibia faces a housing backlog of 300 000.

At the current pace of constructing 2 000 houses annually, Namibia will never eradicate the shack problem, especially since the population continues to grow. Even if Namibia’s economy expands, Windhoek could find itself in a situation similar to Rio de Janeiro, with world-class neighbourhoods situated next to sprawling favela shacks.

The situation in Brazil’s slums is a textbook example of a lack of leadership will to address the problem at hand.

At least the city of Rio de Janeiro can argue that its shack problem is due to overpopulation, which has driven up land prices.

The question is: What is Namibia’s excuse for allowing 80% of its urban population to live in shacks? Namibia is one of the largest countries in Africa by land area, yet it has a very small population.

Our population is smaller than that of many African capital cities, yet it seems our leaders cannot figure out how to solve the shack problem.

Almost all cities in developed countries once had slum problems, but fortunately for them, they had leaders who were willing to address the issue.

For example, the United States faced slums and urban overpopulation and the government responded by building low-income housing known as ‘projects’. South Korea, Singapore, Japan and many other developed nations did the same, with their governments initiating major urban housing projects to rid their countries of slums.

The Namibian government must revive the mass housing project initiated by former president Hifikepunye Pohamba.
That project was the right answer to addressing the country’s shack problem once and for all.

Kanyanga Eberhard