Dege admits shortage

 By MALUM NALU

NATIONAL Housing Corporation managing director John Dege agrees that housing remains a major issue for employers and employees in the country.

He said that yesterday when concurring with yesterday’s front page story in The National of a survey finding that it was very hard to find affordable homes.

“Since the 70s and 80s, most Government housing and land were given away under the Government’s giveaway schemes,” Dege told reporters.

“The government’s predicament is to address the current public service housing dilemma.

“If that is not addressed then we will have a very chronic situation of housing shortage.

“Government wisdom was correct. They were inviting sitting tenants, who were mostly public servants, to basically own part of the heritage.

“It was good thinking, except that they didn’t re-fleet the stock of houses in preparation for future generation public servants.”

Dege said preliminary designs for 40,000 new houses at Durand Farm, outside Port Moresby, and behind the National Research Institute at Waigani had been completed.

“We’ve lodged the necessary documentation with Physical Planning so once that is granted we’ll commence.

“As of last week we’ve started on the environmental study. Most of our work is in the advanced stages.

“Hopefully by June, you can see physical civil works. We hope to deliver a maximum 2,000 houses annually, but 1,000 would be reasonable.”