The government has set aside Ksh2.79 billion for research, feasibility studies, project preparation and design for the Affordable Housing project, the 2025/2026 budget estimates show. 

It is an increase of Sh586 million from Sh1.73 billion allocated to the Housing and Urban Development in the 2024/2025 estimates. 

A check through the development expenditure for the 2025/2026 also shows the budget for other operating expenses has been increased from the previous Sh2.1 billion to Sh3.83 billion, while civil works, which cost Sh32.6 billion in 2024/2025, will now get Sh58.3 billion in the year beginning June. 

The state department has been allocated a whopping Sh119 billion, with the recurrent expenditure being Sh2. 89 billion and the development at Sh116.7 billion. The Sh116.7 billion is an increase from Sh5.74 billion allocated in the 2024/2025 financial year. 

The move came even as the estimates show that in the coming financial year, the government is targeting to register about 598,800 homeowners on the online platform Boma Yangu. 

The Budget Policy Statement (BPS), over 547,000 people have registered for Boma Yangu, of which only 52,000 have collectively saved more than Sh2.3 billion towards homeownership. 

“Additionally, after two years of implementing the Affordable Housing Programme, 124,000 housing units are at different stages of completion across 75 sites in 37 counties. The Programme includes houses for military, police, and correctional services personnel, student accommodation, and private-sector developments,” reads the BPS. 

Despite the low registration in the online platform, the estimates shows that the department has built 605 affordable housing units in Bondeni, Nakuru; 462 units for the National Police and Kenya Prison Services; facilitated mortgage access for 692 civil servants; refurbished 1,633 government pool-housing units;  installed 49 high mast floodlights across various counties,  completed the construction of  10 markets, established 13 Constituency Appropriate Building Materials and Technology (ABMT) centres and trained  4,110 new trainees in the application of ABMTs. 

The move comes just days after Auditor General Nancy Gathungu revealed that the department does not have ownership documents for land where the affordable houses projects are being implemented.