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Singapore Urges Tanzania to Prioritize Development of Affordable Property

Singapore Urges Tanzania to Prioritize Development of Affordable Property

From All Africa

Tanzania has been urged to make land and social services readily available for property developers to enable them put into ‘effect the ‘dream’ of affordable houses for low income earners.

The advice was made in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday during a ceremony to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Ministry for Lands, Housing and Settlement Development and Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE).

The MoU is focused on experience sharing on the matters related to urban planning, housing and construction technologies. The Surbana International Consultants Ltd (SICL) is another company from Singapore that will feature in the cooperation.

The SICL Managing Director, Dr Tay Louis, said that there was no shortcut in the undertaking except the smoothening of the environment to allow for low costs of construction so that houses could be sold at affordable prices. He explained that in Singapore, the government has afforded to provide the people with less expensive homes by providing land for free to companies entrusted with the role of constructing houses for sale.

“We in Singapore also had sacrificed our land for government ownership and now all the land is public-owned and the government can allocate any piece for free to developers,” he said. Dr Louis added that having in place strong pension funds that are ready to give out mortgage loan to its members was crucial for enabling the people to afford decent homes.

“You will never give out houses for free but in Singapore we started by enabling pension funds to support their members,” he said. He promised to share the experience with the ministry concerned so that Tanzania can borrow a leaf.

Written by Abdulwakil Saiboko | Read more at All Africa