Editor's Review

"In a nutshell, we do not have a demand problem for the Affordable Housing Program.”

State House dismissed a story published in a local daily claiming that there is a low uptake of the Government’s Affordable Housing Program (AHP).  

In a statement on Tuesday, August 6, State House Spokesperson Hussein Mohamed said the report is mischievous and deliberately misleading.

He noted that the article is largely anchored on the Auditor General’s audit report that focused on housing projects that were designed and launched well before President Ruto came into power in September 2022.

Mohamed said that none of the projects listed in the local daily fall under the AHP which is a key program in the Kenya Kwanza manifesto.

“The uptake for units under AHP is exceptionally high. For example, the Government demolished 39 units of old houses in Park Road, Nairobi, and replaced them with 1,370 affordable units, all of which were sold out within 90 days,” said the State House Spokesperson.

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He added, “To illustrate the huge demand for affordable housing, when half of the 1,370 units at Park Road were offered to members of the public, over 33,000 Kenyans paid deposits of at least 10 percent. Most of those who missed out have not asked for a refund of their money and are instead waiting to be allocated other units under the AHP. In a nutshell, we do not have a demand problem for the Affordable Housing Program.”

File image of an affordable housing project in Kibera. 

Mohamed also mentioned that the local daily overlooked the fact that AHP was designed differently from previous housing programs with interventions to lower the costs of housing.

He said the interventions include access to public land, provision of free last-mile services like sewerage, electricity, water, and internet, and exemption of all construction inputs under AHP from value-added tax (VAT).

“These interventions have enabled the National Housing Corporation (NHC), as one of the implementing agencies of the AHP, to sell units at between Ksh 1 to 3 million, compared to the previous high of between Ksh 7 and 8 million,” he remarked.

The State House Spokesperson also faulted the local daily for reporting that the Boma Yangu initiative has failed to gain traction since it was launched six years ago.

Mohamed pointed out that 531,943 Kenyans have saved over Ksh 2.255 billion under the Boma Yangu initiative as of August 6th, 2024.

Further, he disclosed that 103,000 affordable housing units have been launched and are in various stages of construction across the country, directly and indirectly creating 160,000 jobs for the Kenyan people since the Kenya Kwanza government came to power in September 2022.

“We reiterate that despite the fact that previous government housing programs were not directly aligned with the Affordable Housing Program, the Kenya Kwanza Administration, under the leadership of President Ruto, is actively working to review and improve the uptake of such programs,” Mohamed stated.

The State House Spokesperson also highlighted that the Kenya Development Corporation Housing units mentioned by the local daily were constructed between 2011-2015 and don’t fall under AHP.