18-year-olds can apply for house lots from January

It was today disclosed by Minister within the Ministry of Communities, Valerie Patterson that persons reaching the age of 18 can from January 03, 2017 apply for a house lot from the Government.

During her budget debate presentation on Tuesday, the Minister disclosed that this will see the persons being allocated their lots by the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) at the age of 21 years.

The decision to reduce the current eligibility age of 21 years old, was made following consultations with young people across the country.

The Minister who has the responsibility for housing in her 2016 National Budget speech, presented to parliament earlier this year, had promised to pursue the policy change. She argued that a person becomes eligible for a number of other responsibilities at the age of 18.

Making her presentation on Tuesday, the Minister also noted that this will increase the performance of the construction sector which saw a decline from 10.5% to a projected 3.2% in 2016.

She also disclosed that the CH&PA only spent 19.9% of its $5.8B budgeted allocation for 2016 and achieved 30.5% of its revenue. This was attributed to lack of necessary human resources, alleged corruption at the agency, lack of capacity and untimely decision making; issues which she promised will not continue it 2017.

The CH&PA allocate 1, 992 lots in 2016, processed 2, 065 transport and titles and issued 4, 642 transports and titles. It also allocated 200 house lots to squatters under its regularisation program.