First Batch of Kigali’s Affordable Houses Ready

First batch of Affordable Houses completed at Masaka a suburb of Kigali city. Beneficiaries await to let in

The governments will this month start offering affordable houses to civil servants registered in a program that seeks to solve housing issue among middle and low income earners.

In the first batch, 32 affordable houses are ready to be handed over to civil servants to start living in at a very affordable mortgage price than earlier planned.

In 2016 government announced plans to start building houses for civil servants earning a salary between Rwf40,000 and Rwf600,000 and targets Kigali, the six secondary cities and all other districts.

“So far 5000 civil servants have expressed interest. The first beneficiaries will have their houses by May,” said Augustin Kampayana, the acting Director General of Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA).

In order to make affordable housing a reality for civil servants, mortgage for houses with two bedrooms and a sitting room, three bed rooms and sitting room have been reduced from between Rwf18million-Rwf25m to Between Rwf12million-Rwf15million.

Affordable houses complete at Kinyinya suburb in Kigali city

This project will address the housing gap which is at 344,068 housing units in Kigali city alone between the years 2012-2022, while demand for housing units annually keeps increasing as a result of an increasing population- now at 12 million.

According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, demand for affordable housing in general is estimated at 560,000 units by 2020. This requires construction of 93,400 units annually (or 7,780 units per month), the ministry indicates.

Currently, 17% of the Rwandan population lives in Kigali and other secondary cities across the country but under the country’s Vision 2020, government plans that at least 70 per cent of Rwandans in rural areas will be living in planned settlements by the year 2020.