Affordable housing must be a priority

Letters

YOUR editorial on Tuesday titled “Housing still unaffordable” (The National, Tuesday, Dec 7) is true indeed that housing is an important human need in all of Papua New Guinea’s urban centres, especially for public servants.
Yes, despite having a rapidly expanding economy, the chances of most urban families acquiring homes of their own remain slim.
It is a problem that many families face and in spite of the building boom in some of our major centres, particularly the nation’s capital.
It is fair to say that most citizens live somewhere between the margin that separates settlements from low cost basic housing.
Can the Housing Minister and the National Housing Corporation (NHC) management come up with the innovative ideas to settle these ongoing issues because most of the criminal activities are also created by the occupants of those housing compounds in NCD.
Several questions that need to be answered are:

  • WHO are the legal occupants of the housing compounds in NCD?
  • ARE unemployed occupants eligible to live in such housing compounds?
  • CAN the NHC management remove or cancel the long overdue tenancy agreements between unemployed occupants and replace them with employed officers, especially public servants?
  • CAN the Housing management review and revisit the terms and conditions of the tenancy agreement?
  • CAN Housing Department accommodate homeless public servants living with wantoks because they are double tax payers? and,
  • CAN the department and NHC renovate all compounds and make amendments to the current Housing Act?

PNG is going backwards, so please NHC, be an active part of “take back PNG” and do it without fear or favour.

Victim Homeless Public Servant