The high property prices in this country especially houses call for urgent intervention by the government to adequately provide housing units that are affordable to those at the bottom of the income ladder.
We are mindful and agree with the Minister of Lands and Housing that there is little that government can do to regulate property prices in our cities and towns. The Rent Act Control, may we add, cannot be enforced because property owners thrive under what we have come to be accustomed as free market.  All things being the same, the government has a duty to protect its citizenry from the sky high property prices by coming up with affordable housing units for the majority of the working class.  
The Self-Help Housing Scheme, however well intended, is not addressing the housing needs of the young urban dwellers in the low and middle income brackets.
By the same token, the Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) has by far and large failed to meet the housing needs of Batswana. If anything, the BHC is a competitor in the property market whose houses are priced way beyond the reach of many Batswana.
The mandate of the BHC, it turns out, is to provide housing, office and other building needs of the government and Local Authorities and to assist and make arrangements for other persons to undertake and carry out building schemes in Botswana. The BHC in this regard is no different from other property developers in the country.
A multi- faceted approach to resolve the shortage of affordable housing is needed.  There are many benefits that can be derived by the government in the provision of cheaper but attractive housing units to its citizens. Nearness to the work place comes to mind. With it, it means late coming does not arise. Consequently productivity at the work place improves.
As things stand, the working class in the lower income brackets have been pushed outside of┬áGaborone for instance, to seek affordable accommodation in its periphery but they still have to commute everyday to Gaborone for work together with their school going children.┬áWith the increasing number of Japanese vehicles on our roads, which are affordable to the majority of low income earners, traffic volumes from all of Gaborone’s entry points of Molepolole, Phakalane, Tlokweng and Ramotswa/Lobatse┬áhave surged.
The government will never have enough resources to upgrade the road infrastructure in our cities and towns to absorb traffic volumes as is presently the case without taking a long and hard look at the concomitant problems associated with traffic volumes. The government had to depart from its earlier plans to upgrade the Lobatse/Gaborone road into a dual carriage after realizing that with the ever increasing traffic volumes the road will not alleviate the problem. With the cost of road infrastructure rising sharply the government may find it difficult not only to construct new roads or upgrade them but to maintain them as long as more people commute to the city every day.
The government, we are aware, does not have adequate land from which to build affordable houses to mitigate the problem of soaring property prices. Yet there are chunks of undeveloped privately owned land in Gaborone belonging to some with connections in high places yet the same government on the other hand is busy repossessing the same undeveloped land from the poor.
