Rambassun (Sandeep) Sewpal
Chartered Construction Manager and Chartered Architect,
Principal at Sandeep Sewpal Architect, RIBA Chartered Practice
Delivery of safe, greener and affordable homes should be a priority for the government. As the Mauritian Government has set a target of building 8,000 new homes by 2024, measures to ensure that the public sector provides residents with decent and good quality homes are desperately needed. The Finance Minister announced the construction of 8,000 new homes during the Supplementary Appropriation (2022-2023) Bill at the cost of approximately Rs. 2.7 million per home. Some Rs. 21.6 billion of grant funding will therefore be required for the construction project of 8,000 new homes. The New Social Living Development Ltd (NSLD) should address the challenges of quality, building safety and the need to create more energy efficient homes, as they are some of the most important elements of the housing sector. The main reason behind the poor quality of social and affordable housing [housing built by Central Housing Authority (CHA) and National Housing Development Company (NHDC)] in Mauritius is most probably the fact that housing projects were exempted from building permits. Therefore, till date, there is no legal obligation for a housing project to meet requirements of building regulations, housing standards and architectural guidelines.
Has the Ministry of Housing come with a Housing Needs Assessment to know exactly how many households are in housing need? Therefore, how does the Finance Minister know that the NSLD should build 8,000 new homes or 12,000 homes as previously announced? Is the provision of housing dictated solely by economic means instead of social welfare policy? The Finance Minister agrees on the need for more social/affordable housing to address the backlog, however, it is the Ministry of Housing that would be best placed to inform on the numbers required to meet the demand. Therefore, how come a Housing Needs Assessment has not been made public by the Ministry of Housing? Bureaucratic procedures call for proper assessments and feasibility studies to be scrutinized prior to giving the green light to any project. Is there a Housing Needs Assessment to justify the need for 8,000 new homes?
The government has focused on quantity when it is clear that there is a need for quality homes. Recently, many new NHDC homes at Gros-Cailloux were flooded causing damage from destroying electrical wiring and furniture to causing sewers to overflow. Consequently, people were unable to work and emergency services stretched beyond their limit. If new homes were built to international housing standards and building regulations, damage to property could have been avoided. The Finance Minister has repeatedly announced the provision of decent homes at every budget speech since 2015, but what were the measures to ensure residents with decent and good quality homes when we know about the recent flooding of NHDC Gros-Cailloux and other NHDC estates? The government has yet to tackle the housing crisis but for what reason in Mauritius, there is still no legislation such as housing acts, homeless person acts, etc., no legislation which gives substance to the right to housing in terms of defining the content of this right, no legislation concerning the rights to tenants to security of tenure, to protection from eviction; to housing finance and rental control (or subsidy), housing affordability, etc., no legislation prohibiting any form of eviction, no legislation restricting speculation on housing or property, when such speculation has a negative impact on the fulfilment of housing rights for all sectors of society and no legislation concerning environmental planning and health in housing and human settlements as advocated by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. If the housing sector was regulated in Mauritius, the NHDC would have built decent and good quality homes.
Rising construction costs, stagnating wages, demographic pressures and housing shortage are challenging the housing affordability in Mauritius. Today, it is clear that the housing sector is facing an affordability crisis following the Finance Minister’s plea to vote for an additional budget. In the last 15 years, social/affordable housing became extremely scarce hence leading to a situation known to us as the housing crisis. Now, coupled with this, the housing sector is facing an affordability crisis as the cost of construction of new social/affordable housing has gone up by 225% over the last 10 years. Despite the government’s effort to increase its national housing budget and the government subsidy, a new home for a household earning not more than Rs. 30,000 will cost Rs. 900,000 with their new formula. In 2013, the Office of the Public Sector Governance (OPSG) released a report on restructuring the NHDC explaining that nearly 40% of NHDC homeowners had an unpaid mortgage debt at a time when the cost of a new home was around Rs. 400,000. Now, the Finance Minister requested that parliamentarians agree to vote on an additional budget of Rs. 5 billion for the construction of 8,000 new homes. A new home will be affordable for whom, the government or the beneficiary? Nevertheless, the government is willing to invest an additional of Rs. 5 billion in the housing sector knowing that there will be no economic revenue since housing is rather regarded as a social welfare policy. From 2006 to 2023, there is little evidence showing that the government was able to meet its housing targets and today, we are at risk of facing an affordability crisis in the housing sector. The closing of CHA clearly showed that social housing failed in Mauritius due to lack of policies addressing the issue of housing. If the government does not fix the affordability crisis by 2024, Mauritius will be required to adopt Intermediate Housing policies in order to re-invent affordable housing.