Time to turn around losses: NHC

By KELVIN JOE
THE National Housing Corporation (NHC) has lost about K120 million in revenue yearly due to increasing rental arrears and rundown facilities, managing director Henry Mokono says.
Mokono said thousands of tenants throughout the country had outstanding rental arrears with some accumulated up to more than K100,000.
“NHC is a single biggest real estate (owner) in the country, including Port Moresby and Lae, where it should make about K10 million to K12 million internal revenue every month, but we have collected only K200,000 to K250,000 currently,” he said.
Mokono said NHC would maintain and renovate its properties, and reinvest in building new houses if it was able to collect the expected monthly revenue on time.
He said, however, that previous managements had also allowed NHC facilities throughout the country to get run down over the years.
“If NHC is able to collect that kind of money annually, we could continue to invest and improving all our facilities, while assisting the Government to fund other public investment programmes in the country,” he said.
Mokono said funding received from the Government was budgeted for maintenance and operations, while payments from tenants was not for profit, but, to reinvest in the properties they were occupying.
“Tenants needed to pay their fortnightly rental fees and there was no excuse not to do so,” he said.
“It does not mean you are residing in the Government properties where you will not pay anything.
“Nothing is for free.”
Mokono said NHC had a lot of land in Port Moresby that it needed development.
“We have plans and want to develop those land and facilities so tenants should help us to ensure we achieved that together,” he said.
As a recovery exercise, the national Housing Corporation is evicting tenants who have consistently not paid rentals.