BHC abandons installments for cash sales

Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC)’s endeavor to house potential home seekers across the country is being hampered by shortage of land in areas with high demand.

Reginald Motswaiso, the parastatal’s Chief Executive Officer told media in Gaborone this week that land is one of the challenges BHC faces in delivering its mandate and has pushed the company to high rise units. With a 400 million pula loan in its coffers to bridge the gap and provide houses for home seekers especial youth, the company has abandoned its installment scheme to a cash purchase for its 372 units that were recently completed in Gaborone, as land availability haunt rapid rollout.

“It was a difficult decision but necessary,” said Motswaiso, citing that the units were built using borrowed funds due to be paid back to capital holders. “Unless if we could secure direct funding from government,” Motswaiso said.

He said BHC’s loan scheme is a 15 years repayment deal yet a standard mortgage is for 25 years, creating a mismatch.“We financed this project through a loan. There is no way that we would let this project be a white elephant. It has to be a success,” said Motswaiso.

He said through installment purchase scheme (IPS) the money would come in ‘drips and drops’ and take BHC years to build and replicate the project, whose initial target was 1000 units a year.Being piloted first in Gaborone, the project is anticipated to spread to other centres, after a firm demand is secured. Meanwhile, BHC has announced that the selling of the 372 units will commence this Friday following the official launch of the project at P440 160.00 per unit.

Motswaiso indicated that the first 250 units have been reserved for youth and BHC is optimistic the uptake will be positive.