A young engineer who leads a Facebook group that wants government to address Botswana’s housing crisis warns of chaos in three years if the matter is not addressed urgently.
Read the following paragraph and let’s see if it sounds familiar.
A nice (or even not-so-nice) piece of land is advertised for P100 000, and while the bank processes your application for a personal loan, someone with ready cash snatches it. Meantime, the price of land keeps rising. Then you hear of another plot going for ÔÇô wait for it ÔÇô P250 000. Professional valuation puts its real value at P190 000 ÔÇô and so begins the process to haggle with the seller. Grudgingly, he drops the asking price to P230 000. You sleep over it, hoping to continue bargaining in the morning. However, the new day brings with it news that you’ve lost this one as well ÔÇô someone just snatched it!
Sounds familiar? I bet it sure does. Haven’t we all been there?
This is a true and personal story of Motlhaleemang Moalosi, the man behind the Facebook group called Petition to the Minister of Lands and Housing. As the name implies, the group has gathered signatures to petition government about the non-availability of land.
The process leading to formation of the Facebook group began after the second deal mentioned above collapsed.
“I then started asking myself, if an engineer married to a lawyer cannot afford a plot in Francistown, who can? What happens to police officers, nurses, teachers, self-employed taxi drivers, let alone cashiers, and petrol pump attendants?” he asks.
In his work as a Field Engineer responsible for Africa employed by US firm, TCI International Inc, Moalosi travels a lot on the continent. In the past three years alone, he has been to 13 African countries. He says what always strikes him is that although most working people earn almost a quarter of what their counterparts earn in Botswana, there is a higher rate of homeownership in other African countries than in Botswana ÔÇô and we are talking countries where there is little or no access to credit.
“I noticed that in each of these countries, it is relatively cheap to buy a piece of land,” he says. “For example, in Lusaka, you can get a nice plot in a good location for US$10, 000 while a similar plot in Francistown would cost US$40 000. Having built my own house in my home village before, I knew that the cost of building a house is a fraction of the cost of buying a similar house from, let’s say, BHC (Botswana Housing Corporation).
“I started discussing these issues with friends on Facebook and I realised that most of my friends, especially those from bigger villages such as Mahalapye and Palapye, do not own a house anywhere in the country. Most have been waiting since 2004 to get a plot in their own villages. We all agreed that there was something fundamentally wrong with our land tenure system, especially when we noticed that plots in Gaborone and Francistown are out of reach of almost all working Batswana. BHC houses are also priced beyond the reach of even high ranking government officials such as deputy directors and assistant police commissioners. We were witnessing vacant BHC houses in such places as Francistown, Mahalapye, Jwaneng, and Maun mainly because they were priced beyond the reach of the population,” he relates.
He recalls that early this year, Francistown South’s Member of Parliament, Wynter Mmolotsi, posted a notice on Facebook asking his constituents to forward him their concerns, which he would raise in Parliament. Moalosi says in response, he wrote “a lengthy piece” about the unaffordability of land and housing. To his disappoint, the MP did not raise the land issue, but instead tabled a motion for regulation of fees in private schools. Moalosi explains that his disappointment stems from the fact that even though exorbitant fees levied by private schools concern some Batswana, the matter pales in comparison to the land and accommodation issue because not all Batswana send their children to private schools.
After consulting with some friends on what could be done to force the land issue onto the national agenda, the idea of a petition to government was born. Two weeks after the petition was mooted, the group managed to garner 20 000 signatures. At the last count, the Facebook group had 7 200 members and still growing. Moalosi says other people who are not on Facebook have shown commitment to the petition. He estimates that they are not too far from the target of 40 000 signatures. He says the rather unusual method of a petition was the only viable option available.
“Raising the issue through politicians had failed,” he states. “At every kgotla meeting, people complain about land issues, from corrupt and inefficient land boards to unscrupulous real estate agents and landlords. I have also written a few letters to the newspapers on the issue but that has not helped either. The petition will make sure that the minister gives us direct answers to our questions and also make him understand the magnitude of the problem. We are one huge non-partisan voice that the minister would be foolhardy to ignore.”
Already, there are indications that a number of hurdles will need to be scaled to reach the minister of lands and housing. Though the group has made a request to present the petition, an appointment with the minister has not been possible.
Reason?
His busy schedule.
Moalosi says they have been told to keep on checking the minister’s office from December 5.
“We were disappointed with this casual response, so we have written back to the minister’s office asking for a firm date,” he says. “We understand the minister has a diary and we want his office to pick an exact date. We hope they can find a date this year, but we will not lose momentum even if they say he is not available until next year.”
Moalosi’s analysis is that in the current land crisis, everybody is disadvantaged, especially the poor. He says it just goes to underscore the magnitude of the problem when a university graduate employed in the civil service cannot afford to rent a bachelor flat from BHC.
“Your average Ipelegeng worker cannot even afford to rent a windowless un-electrified house in Mmopane,” he states.
He says the problem is a result of poor government policies. He refers me to a quote from the ministry of lands and housing’s website on the FAQ section, which states that “Allocation of land is subject to availability of serviced land”.
“There has been no plot serviced since the Accelerated Land Servicing Programme in the late 1980’s. This is the main reason why the waiting list is not moving as anticipated. The only few allocations being made are repossessed plots,” Moalosi says. “If there has been no land servicing for 25 years and counting, where do we expect people to live? Unless and until the government prioritises land servicing we will never get out of this problem.”
He argues that government should have a deliberate policy to service and avail land to Batswana. He even suggests that if there is no money to service the land, government should just grade roads and allocate plots. He points to Gaborone North, where people built houses without services.
Moalosi suggests a review of BHC’s mandate. He says instead of building expensive houses “in the middle of nowhere”, the organisation should be encouraged to build condominiums that can house low income earners ÔÇô something similar to a project he saw in Ethiopia, where it would be possible to pay a rent of P800 for a two bedroomed apartment.
He finds it worrying that Batswana have been pushed out of the cities. People who work in Francistown commute from villages such as Borolong, Matshelagabedi, and Chadibe because they cannot afford rentals in the city. He says this results in a tired workforce because of the long distances traveled each morning and evening. He points out that part of the reason Batswana have less money in the pocket is because most people work just so that they can afford rent.
From his interactions with young people, Moalosi has realized that most are frustrated and they feel politicians do not care about their plight. He warns that if the land crisis is left unaddressed, people would resort to violence and illegal squatting.
He has heard young people complain that foreigners are buying up plots in the prime places of Botswana’s cities.
“Eventually our cities will be owned by foreigners and this will lead to xenophobia which will lead to violence. That would have dire consequences for our economy as investors will fear for their safety. We also have a risk of dirty money being laundered through our property markets,” he says. “But most importantly, the divide between the poor and the rich will keep getting wider. I anticipate that as soon as 2015, we will start hearing grumblings from our already suffering population, especially if lack of affordable housing is coupled with unemployment.”
In response to a question on what should be done to prevent the volcano he warns about, Moalosi refers to a book he is currently reading, Greg Mills’ “Why Africa is poor and what African can do about it”, in which the author argues that the main reason why Africa’s people are poor is because their leaders have made this choice. Mills makes the point that countries can grow their economies and develop faster if leaders take sound decisions in the national interest.
“This is true for Botswana,” Moalosi says. “We ask our leaders to start putting the interests of Batswana first in all their decisions.”
