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By ISAAC NICHOLAS
HOUSING must now be a condition of employment, Housing and Urban
Development Minister Andrew Kumbakor said last Friday.
The Minister also gave directions that there would be “no more
evictions” carried out by National Housing Corporation (NHC) and urged
the latter to facilitate the titles for Papua New Guineans to own
houses.
Mr Kumbakor said this when he was welcomed back by NHC to continue his
term as minister.
Mr Kumbakor said the National Government had failed over the last 20
years to come up with a National Housing Development Policy (NHDP).
“We have failed to get support from the Government over the last 10-15
years; we have no think-tank group inside NHC and we don’t have a
housing policy.”
He said the priority now was for NHC to come up with a policy that would
deal with what kind of housing should be provided in rural and urban
areas.
He said the policy was important because it could be accommodated in the
medium term development strategy (MTDS), which was the formula to frame
the budget and funding access.
Mr Kumbakor said he had pushed for a policy to be in place within 12
months but nothing had eventuated.
“NHC management and board must follow-up and ensure that a housing
policy is in place so that we can have same accessibility and equality
to funds when we talk about financing for houses.”
He said successive governments had forgotten about housing for the
workers.
“Housing must now be a condition of employment. If that does not happen,
problems associated with urbanisation, settlement and unemployment would
not be addressed and healthy living would not happen.
“If housing is a condition for employment, the workers would be entitled
to houses provided by companies and the Government. There would be no
urban settlement, there will be good work productivity and there would
be no corruption and no more health problems because they would be
living in a healthy environment.”
Mr Kumbakor’s welcome ceremony was attended by NHC Board members
including Jack Pidik, Kaminiel Warkia, Thomas Bullen, Public Employees
Association and PNGTUC president Michael Malabag and chairman of
Urbanisation Max Kep.
 
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