Construction of affordable houses project in Kisumu County is set to begin in September. County Director of Housing Fredericks Onyango attributed the delays majorly to financial constraints thus hindering the progress of the noble project.
“The final budget for the project is not yet out, what we have is just a draft of the budget. The national government has not yet released the funds. The budget for the whole project had been initially estimated at Sh800 million,” Onyango said, adding that the budget for the whole project had been initially estimated at Sh800 million.
The housing project will be set up in Makasembo and Anderson estate. The county had planned to develop 3000 units of affordable houses by end of this year with 1700 and 1300 units to be constructed in Makasembo and Anderson estates respectively.
Ground breaking ceremony
Despite the backlogs, the ground breaking, which was set to happen this month is still going to take place as scheduled and the County is currently advertising for contractors though the construction of the units has been pushed to September.
Talks and consultations with experts on matters of construction are also underway in a bid to reach consensus on the model to be used for the housing project. Models like Design Build and Transfer (DBT) and Built Operate Transfer (BOT) are some of the models under consideration.
“We are looking at Nairobi, Mombasa and Kitui counties which have rolled out their programmes to see what they are doing so that we can emulate them,” affirmed the Director.
As a way to curb the delays caused by lack of funding, the county is working with potential developers to aid in getting the project done. In addition, a housing conference involving various stakeholders inclusive of the developers is scheduled for next month where a road map detailing how the operations of the project is going to be run will be discussed.
