Housing Baraza: Experts want policies that support housing cooperatives
Housing experts have tasked the government with developing policies that support housing cooperatives on top of providing housing for extremely vulnerable groups.
The remarks were made on the last day of NBS Housing Baraza held under the theme; Building a strong ecosystem, partnering to house generation. The event took place at the Next Conference Centre in Naguru.
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The partners in the NBS Housing Baraza were; National Planning Authority (NPA)Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Plascon, Innovation village, Soliton Telmec, National Social Security Fund (NSSF) among others.
Shirley Kongai, the president of the Association of Real Estate Agents of Uganda said they are lobbying for real estate laws because they want real estate to be regulated.
"At the moment, the brokers, developers, and the business itself are not regulated. The government is at the forefront; they have prioritised the Real Estate Bill. Hopefully, by next year, it should be on the Floor of Parliament," she said.
With this law, Kongai said they will be prioritised as the real estate sector in terms of policies, budget allocation, enforcement, incentives, as well as guarantees and tax holidays.
Peace Ayebazibwe Kabunga, the executive director at the Housing Finance Bank said failure to tackle the housing challenges is not just for one stakeholder but it is a failure for the all.
"I am calling upon all of us to work together and stop the blame game. It's a journey that we must walk together. Generally speaking, the cost of finance in Uganda remains a challenge because of so many reasons. When you look at our saving culture in Uganda, it's very poor," she said.
Kabunga said they are working with developers to be able to support the developers to create demand for the houses they are putting up.
The director programmes at the Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Uganda, Joseph Lutwama said If the country can solve the housing problem, it would probably have solved 90% of the economic problems.
