K100m housing programme

By EMMANUEL MAIPE
A BUDGET proposal of more than K100 million has been put in place by the National Housing Corporation for government to deliver its 2013 housing infrastructure programme.
The government, through NHC, plans to provide suitable and affordable houses and accommodation for civil servants and the general public in urban and district centers.
It has seen that the bulk of the workforce live in settlements or with relatives which contributed to the poor work performance in various sectors.
Project manager for the infrastructure programme Peter Karake said the NHC’s project development division has put together the budget proposal that may be excessive but suitable for the projects.
“We believe that this budget is suitable for the project.
“The National Housing Corporation has planned this for quite a long time and has not succeeded due to insufficient funding,” he said.
NHC plans to develop new properties and redevelop existing ones in the National Capital District and other selected centres such as Madang, Lae, Kimbe, Kavieng, Alotau and Vanimo.
Each centre’s proposed costing from government direct funding has been put together to reach K188.38 million for the budget proposal.
Karake said NHC needed the funding to implement the project of development and redevelopment, which did not have to be funded at one time.
It can be programmed for over five years or so due to the limited funds allocated by the government.
“Funding is a great need at the moment for NHC as there are a lot of proposed projects that need to be implemented for the public housing sector. With no funding allocated last year, it has caused NHC to put a stop to all major projects until funding is made available,” he said.
Minister for Housing and Urbanisation Paul Isikiel said they needed to convince the government to allocate the funding through the performance of the corporation to show it could do the projects.
“We need to perform to
get favour from the government to give funding,” Isikiel said.