By Ngoni Shumba
MUTARE, Zimbabwe (News Of The South) – With the country’s liquidity crunch dragging despairingly into an unknown future the largely resilient housing market is now showing signs of distress.
Impressive urban settlement development has been performing well in spite of the country’s economic challenges with new suburbs sprouting across the country largely due to housing associations which have been damming low income earners’ resources to develop urban properties.
One of the country’s controversial but effective social housing developers Destiny of Afrika Network (DANet) Projects Director Wilson Masokovere said although they still enjoy good progress in their running projects they are now experiencing low uptake in new developments.
“We recently opened up its doors to prospective high, medium and low density home owners but the uptake has been rather slow because people are failing to access their funds,” Masokovere said.
David Pick a senior official in the Reverend Obadiah Musindo founded organisation said the liquidity crunch was likely to slow down progress in new schemes if the status quo remains.
“The projects will be completed but they may take a little longer,” Pick said. Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) President Busisa Moyo said transactions were depressed because about $5.9 billon was locked up in
the country’s banking system.
“There is $5.9 billion that is in banks… You have a bank balance but can’t use the money,” Moyo said.
Only recently News of the South reported how the country’s low income earners’ ability to secure urban stands and build their own houses has fascinated Africa envoys eliciting their interest in how the sector was organized.
Reverend Musindo revealed then to this publication how African ambassadors had taken a keen interest in the country’s housing sector as they witness a lot of housing at a time the country was battling an economic recession.
Reverend Musindo said under his social housing scheme even vegetable and airtime vendors have been able to secure stands to the surprise of the foreign dignitaries with at least three countries having already extended an invitation to his organization to replicate the project.
“We have invitations to go and do exactly what we are doing in South Africa, Namibia and Equatorial Guinea… they are saying we don’t know how you are doing it,” Reverend Musindo said.
He said the ambassadors would tour his organisations’ projects soon which could increase the number of countries they would be invited to.
“We will have a tour of our projects by African ambassadors and this will help us achieve our goal of housing the whole of Africa,” he said.
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