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Martin Kadzere Senior Business Reporter
THE Finance Ministry has approved tax-free debt instruments and housing bonds for the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe to raise $100 million to build low-cost housing across the country. “I am pleased to report that the bank’s plans to raise $100 million in bonds and issue tax-free fixed deposits and paid-up permanent shares are at an advanced stage,” IDBZ chief executive Mr Charles Chikaura said.

“Individuals with small savings, including co-operatives, seeking to own a house or a serviced stand will shortly be invited to invest in these tax-free debt instruments under a programme targeted at delivering their dream house over a short period of time.”

Zimbabwe is faced with a significant housing backlog. The housing shortage is estimated at 1,25 million units which translates to a national backlog of five million citizens or more than 40 percent of total population.

These housing problems are resulting from constrained formal housing finance and public capital funding streams.
Housing finance schemes which are currently available have little incremental effect on the national housing stock as these are either exclusively packaged for a few targeted groups or are priced beyond the reach of the poor.

Under Zim-Asset, Government intends to reduce the housing backlog through the provision of serviced land, strengthen public private partnerships and adoption of new building technology. The Government will also strengthen community-based housing organisations, strengthen micro-housing finance institutions and adopt densification (vertical expansion).
Mr Chikaura, whose bank launched the Marimba Park Housing Development last week, said IDBZ, as a policy bank established to champion infrastructure development including housing, “identifies” strongly with the objectives of the recently launched National Housing Delivery Strategy in the context of Zim-Asset.

“Against this background and, in an effort to fulfil its mandate to promote infrastructure development, and in particular housing delivery as a basic necessity for Zimbabweans, the bank has formulated the IDBZ Housing Strategy, a five-year strategy based on Zim-Asset for the provision of sustainable and affordable housing delivery covering the period 2014 to 2018,” he said.

The bank targets to develop about 46 hectares in Marimba comprising 430 high-density stands measuring 300 square metres each in size and 270 medium-density stands measuring 510 square metresd each.

This also includes the usual ancillary provisions such as commercial stands for a shopping centre, churches and a crèche.
Mr Chikaura said the bank was targeting to build 30 000 housing units in the next three years.