Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

President William Ruto yesterday said construction of affordable housing projects will be underway in every county by mid next year.

In his Jamhuri Day speech, Ruto said 33 active housing development sites in various parts of the country are employing 120,000 people.

Another 31 sites, he said, are undergoing evaluation to begin construction next month.
“The housing programme is a bottom-up job creator….Our strategic focus is to construct thousands of housing units while creating millions of jobs. South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia undertook these major housing works some 40 years ago, and that’s why their economies are ahead of ours.”

Ruto defended the housing plan saying that apart from creating direct employment opportunities in construction and associated services, it will indirectly support the formal and informal manufacturing of materials, fixtures, fittings and accessories required in the construction.

“Our housing programme is fundamentally a massive, deliberate and systematic job creation mechanism. From architects and engineers to plumbers, quantity surveyors and engineers to site workers, artisans, fabricators, electricians and plumbers, and the construction workers,” he added.

The government has tabled a new bill that seeks to regularise the housing levy deductions weeks after the High Court ruled that the tax was unconstitutional.

The Affordable Housing Bill that was tabled in the National Assembly last Thursday provides for how levies will be managed, gives criteria on ownership of housing units and establishes an affordable housing fund that will be managed by a board.

The bill compels employers to remit the 1.5 per cent deduction failure to which they will be liable to fines of up to three per cent of the unpaid amount.