Kenya seeks up to $545 million during the current fiscal year to fund its social housing project, Charles Hinga, Principal Secretary, State Department for Housing and Urban Development indicated.

According to the official’s statement reported by Bloomberg,  a new 1.5% tax on workers and their employers should facilitate the mobilization of those funds. Thanks to that tax, the authorities expect to accelerate the implementation of that project for which each unit is estimated at $23,000.

Carlos Felipe Jaramillo, World Bank Country Director for Kenya, indicated that the country will have to build 300,000 units each year to fill the housing deficit estimated at about 2 million units.

To that regard, the government adopted a development plan in 2017 whose goal is to build more than 500,000 social houses in the country by 2022.

Let’s note apart from building social houses, Kenya is also planning to provide affordable bank loans to the poorest category for easy access to housing.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou