World Bank

The World Bank (WB) has said there is future progress in housing in Tanzania and it is committed to support the government to develop the sector.

This was said yesterday in Dar es Salaam by Simon Walley, who is the WB Senior Housing Finance Specialist at the going international conference on growing housing opportunities in Africa organised by the Bank of Tanzania (BoT) in collaboration with Africa Union Housing for finance(AUHF).

He said there is a huge demand for housing in many African countries including Tanzania, and the country has shown a good example to develop the sector.

Already the government has established the Tanzania Mortgage Refinance Company (TMRC) to support individuals to access loans through banks.

Already the WB has dished out USD40m to the government through the company to support the initiatives.  He said the main functions of the WB supported housing finance system, is to issue mortgage design and managing of profitability and risk in the housing finance institutions illustrated with a walk-through of the project design of Tanzania Housing Finance which aims to expand the access to affordable housing finance for the purchase, construction or upgrading of housing.

He noted that the WB housing finance strategy is to develop sustainable and accessible housing finance markets.

There are two strategic pillars which are to establish building blocks of sound housing finance markets and expanding access to finance of moderate/lower income groups.

Walley revealed that similar programmes have been carried out in some countries namely Nigeria, Uganda, Brazil, Mexico, Latvia, Kenya, Burkina Faso, West Africa Economic Community, Egypt, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Armenia,
Other countries include Azerbaijan, India, Pakistan, West Bank Gaza, Indonesia and China.

Opening the conference on Monday, the Deputy Minister for Lands, Housing and Human Settlements, Goodluck ole Medeye said the government has started to review all restrictive laws for land to enable more people access it and build low cost houses.

He said the government intends to do away with all cumbersome procedures facing wananchi so as to acquire land or own houses.

According to him, establishment of TMRC is a clear example that where people would access loans from commercial banks for the building of low cost houses.

He said Tanzania is committed to unlock housing problems which face many people in urban and rural areas.

He urged investors to consider investing in low cost houses to enable more people own and repay the loans within a short period of time.

The three-day conference which discussed various issues relating to development and challenges facing the housing industry attracting over 200 participants ended yesterday.