NYUMBA YANGA
__________
NYUMBA yanga. My house. This is what every Zambian citizen ought to say at a youthful stage in their lives. However, most don’t get to say these mind-calming and comforting words.
Under international law, housing is a human right. The right to adequate housing is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [CESCR].
We were thousands of feet above the ground. Our campaigns successfully completed, we were in a helicopter flying from Sinda District to Mfuwe International Airport.
Turning to Hakainde Hichilema, as his vice president, I said: ‘When we get into office, we should build quality affordable housing units for our people.’
‘You are right. We should,’ he agreed with me, beaming.
As a measurable roadmap to human development, I had introduced the concept of a Basic Living Package [BLP] for each citizen to him. Housing was one of the components of the package. Education, health and employment were also in the package.
I went on: ‘Considering the shortage of land, we should build them high-rise structures. Say ten-storey buildings with each floor having four housing units. We could offer them to citizens on a rent-to-own basis.’
He was quiet for a while. The whirring sound of the helicopter blades filled the silence. The sight of the trees rushing behind us assured me that we were indeed covering distance, heading to our destination. Soon we would reach.
‘I don’t like the tall buildings,’ he broke the silence.
It must have been the villager in him coming out. I said nothing about that. Empathy became me.
To take out the sting from what I was about say, I flashed a warm smile at him. Whilst smiling, I said: ‘It doesn’t really matter what you like or don’t like. We must do what the people need. We should improve their standard of living. And our decisions should not be personal but should be informed by sound cost-benefit analyses.’
He didn’t smile back at me. Instead, he reached into a Ukwa bag, Wallace Chakawa, his cousin, had unzipped for him. From it, he got out a rock bun and dug his teeth into it.
I remained quiet, allowing him to digest what I had just said.
Zambia has a housing deficit of about 1.5 million units. Many of its citizens, as if in hell, live in decrepit and primitive structures.
Most Zambians do not have their own houses. Most live in rented houses. And many others live in hovels, substandard structures that, trust me, would have shocked even Adam and Eve. They are that primordial and backward.
Housing is considered as a precondition for other human rights such as the right to life, the right to health and the right to social security. All human beings should live in houses that conduce to their happiness, health and wellbeing.
‘Banagula newspaper ya mailo? Munipaseko nibelengeko,’ his request seemed innocent enough.
Her husband, a menial labourer, was sweating out a living for the family at work.
She answered: ‘Osayendanayo kutali. Muzaniletelela. Ija ya mazo munataya.’
‘Nizabelengela pamene pano. Lekani cabe nibelengele mwamene umo munyumba mwanu,’ to assuage her conscience, he suggested.
Her husband didn’t know a thing. Such was life pa mudadada, a block of single rooms that passed for flats.
Consent obtained, he pummelled her like a demon, leaving her sexually dazed. Unbeknownst to the man of the house, the indiscretion carried on for days on end.
Such was life in that congested neighbourhood. Everyone seemed to be doing it. She wasn’t alone.
That is how she contracted a lethal sexually transmitted disease. To this day, her husband doesn’t know how he too got infected.
They lived in a shanty compound, an unplanned settlement. Decrepit one-room structures that passed for their rented homes were everywhere they littered the place
As a lame excuse, rapid population growth is often given by the authorities as the chief reason for the housing units deficit in Zambia. What is more convincing, however, is stagnated governance thought and its subsequent failure to plan.
Blaming the critical shortage of housing units on rapid population increase alone would make you think that people, in hordes fall from the skies.
It is the responsibility of the State to designate land for various purposes – industrial, agricultural, game or human settlements. As a given, through Councils, land for human settlements should first be serviced before the allocation of plots.
A serviced piece of land for human habitation will have a reticulation system for clean and safe water, a functional sewerage system, roads, electricity supply lines and social amenities such as police and heath posts, schools, markets, open spaces like play parks, public swimming pools and recreational areas which may include stadia.
Besides, to ensure the observance of housing standards, and to ensure that each house is built in accordance with public health and other specifications, building plans ought to be examined and endorsed by a responsible local authority.
You see, dear reader, there is a strong linkage between housing, the lack of it, and health, the quality of life and longevity. Quality housing is a precursor of healthy communities.
A society that enable citizens to build or own houses only after retirement is a warped one. For, of what use is a house when one is advanced in age, when one’s death looms.
Quality and affordable housing units, with their varied payment plans, either for rent or purchase ought to available to every citizen that turns twenty-one. It is the responsibility of the State to build these or to enable the private sector to play their role in addressing this challenge.
The kid was born fine, bouncy and healthy. Then the father got TB. It was sputum positive, meaning that every time he coughed, he filled the air in their house with germs. They were six of them in all, in their one-roomed house, clearly a sorry case of terrible congestion. A filthy piece of cloth partitioned the room into two, the bed side and the living area. Privacy was something they never knew. Their minds repeatedly assaulted, the older kids bore witness too many adult things that they should not have seen.
It is not surprising that, today, the kid is now failing to thrive. The kid is now malnourished and stunted. The kid is now also on TB treatment, and from the look of things, the kid isn’t likely to survive.
Soon the kid will just be another sad statistic of the perils of infant morbidity and mortality in Zambia.
What’s ideal would be that, for each built house, connection for electricity by ZESCO or any other power-vending company should be free of charge.
In addition to free connection, each home owner should then be offered a free voucher for three key household items – a refrigerator, a television set and a stove.
Such a housing plan would not only create more consumers for power and other services, increase demand for household electrical appliances, but would also significantly improve the quality of life of the citizens.
With a TV set for instance, a device for accessing information installed, even the participation of citizens in their own governance would improve. Refrigeration would enhance household food preservation.
Cost-recovery for the free connection and the appliances given would then be staggered over time and recouped from a client-specific electricity tariff plan, through payment of the electricity bills.
In the end, with such an amenities and utility chain created, value would then be added to the economy besides the enhancement of the health and wellbeing of citizens.
Diseases that are associated with poor housing or the lack of it, include scabies, ringworms, meningitis, cholera, typhoid, dysentery and tuberculosis.
In addition, quality housing has a significant positive impact on mental health. Poor housing can literally make one lose one’s mind.
That perennially human settlements such as Lusaka city are bedevilled with devastating outbreaks of cholera and dysentery is attributable to its many unplanned compounds. It is evident and urgent that, to sustainably end these costly outbreaks, save lives and other costs, an informed upgrade of these settlements is required.
Of what use is a government if it cannot help you to live well? Of what use is a government if it cannot help you to access quality and affordable housing?
If a government fails to improve the livelihoods of citizens, what then is the role of that government in the lives of citizens? These and many other pertinent questions need answers.
According to Hakainde Hichilema, Zambia’s Republican President today, at the time enjoying an exemplary state of mental clarity, said when ‘a government fails to change the lives of the people, the people must change the government.’ But in a shocking turn of events, refusing the leave, as if high on something, he is now reminding citizens that he has glued his bottom to the people’s chair.
In a disturbing case of discordance, though the people have given him an ‘F’ for his performance, he argues that they are wrong, he is in the ‘A’ league.
Dr Kenneth Kaunda remains without equal. He is exemplary. By far, he is a towering example of what leadership is about.
Understanding the importance of housing in the lives citizens, and appreciating the role of the State in it, he created the National Housing Authority [NHA], and with it, in addition to using other institutional tools, he built everything.
The Movement for Multiparty Democracy [MMD] did their bit, built on Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s legacy and, among other projects, gave us Nyumba Yanga and the Presidential Housing Initiative [PHI].
The Patriotic Front [PF] upped the game. Just ask police officers, ZAF officers and other uniformed servicemen and women. With pride, they will show you the thousands of housing units that they now live in and which have transformed their lives.
Truth be told, the undoing of the United Party for National Development [UPND] is its inordinate emphasis and reliance on the private sector.
The primary purpose of the private sector is the pursuit of profit and not national development per se. It follows then that if Vubwi or Shangombo districts do not make business sense, the private sector will not invest there but instead will avoid them like the plague.
Typical of its grounding in capitalism and its archaic principles, worth noting is that the United Party for National Development (UPND) government is said to have focused on reforming the entire housing value chain, with the goal of streamlining processes related to land acquisition, infrastructure development, and private sector participation in housing. They also plan to support community-mobilized housing initiatives and promote affordable housing finance.
And because of this approach, the UPND government has really built nothing.
Okay to be fair, it is not uncommon to hear statements like, ‘Kazungula District was handing over two houses.’ Imagine that. Two here, four there, just like that, as if a housing development run by a struggling charcoal vendor.
To illustrate just what happens when the government takes the lead, in the west of Lusaka, the PF built thousands and thousands of housing units for the Zambia Army and its staff. Go there and see. Bias aside, you will be impressed.
And because the UPND government has not made specific allocations towards affordable housing in its annual budgets, relying instead on the private sector and other institutions to drive the housing agenda, there now is egg on their faces, as the child’s play occurring at the CDF approach chaotic, only marginal, grossly inadequate and extremely embarrassing.
Now, my brother Hakainde Hichilema, listen to me.
In the few months remaining before the end of your reign, you can still do something that significantly impacts the lives of Zambians.
First, find an equity partner. Inexpensive capital is the guiding spirit. From the CDF in the next budget, ring-fence a fraction of the funds just for housing.
Then working with the equity partner, in a PPP [Public-Private Partnership] model way, instruct each Council, with required central planning guidance, to build at least 1000 quality and low cost houses.
You can stagger the targeted number depending on need. And see? By August 2025, you will have left behind at least 116, 000 housing units as your legacy. And the citizens might just clap for you and keep you in their memories.
This then is how you improve the livelihoods of citizens. This then is how you build lives. This then is how you build a country. This then is how to stay in power.
Persecution and repression don’t work. Forcing yourself upon the people forces the people to reject and discard you.
Zambia is a member of the United Nations. And the United Nations, by way of guiding its member states, has sustainable development goals [SDGs].
SDG number 11 states that, by 2030, all member states should ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums.
Now tell me, fellow citizens when we leave the upgrade of unplanned settlements and the construction of housing units to the private sector alone, will Zambia attain this goal in the next five years?
The answer is a resounding ‘no’.
Zambia’s Republican President Hakainde Hichilema must show the required leadership on housing development. Nonetheless, if the four years he has been in power are what we must go by on this issue then the future remains bleak and indeed uninspiring.
A house is not a luxury. A house is a fundamental and basic human right.
It follows then that a house or its absence is a valid assessment tool for the evaluation of the performance of a president or any leader of the people.
Ask yourselves the question then. Has this government created the required environment for you to rent or own a house of your choice, dear reader?
If not, it then means that the government has failed you.
Poor housing or no housing at all creates disease and causes people to die.
Contagion in congested or poor living quarters festers and spreads fast.
It ought to be noted that national housing developments create jobs, enhance trade in goods and services, improve the quality of lives of citizens and, in a sustainable manner, eliminate the spread and outbreaks of infectious diseases.
State-driven, the Chinese economy gave birth to a housing boom and, in return, the housing boom further fuelled economic growth. Best practices must be emulated. This is partly how China transformed the lives of its people and ended their poverty.
And building one’s own house from a pension reflects a bad economic framework and should not happen in, as the United Nations states, sustainable cities and communities. It is lame.
Building a house in retirement is a basis for mourning. You see, we build houses so that we can live and not die in them.
I pray a day arises in your life, dear reader, whilst you are still youthful and in your prime, when you will proudly say iyi ni nyumba yanga.
Godspeed!
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