President William Ruto has issued fresh directives to the Ministry of Lands, Public Works, Housing and Urban Development, on the enlistment of more private companies and professionals into the Affordable Housing Programme.
Ruto spoke on Tuesday, July 15, during the launch of the Affordable Housing Internship Programme at State House, Nairobi, where he observed the need to expand partnerships with the private sector to fast-track the delivery of housing units to meet the increasing demand.
“When we started, we had to start with a few, maybe 39 consortiums,” Ruto said. “We now need to take that to 60 or 70. We will be bringing on board more companies; engineering firms, architects, design companies and real estate professionals.”
Ruto admitted that the initial capacity of the housing programme had been overstretched by the scale of the project, whose primary aim is to provide low-cost housing while also creating employment countrywide.
According to the President, the expansion of participating companies was no longer optional, but a necessity to sustain the Affordable Housing momentum.
He added, "The Ministry will now embark on the exercise of bringing on board these stakeholders who want to be part of the Housing programme. We have a clearer plan today than we’ve ever had for job creation - and housing is a key pillar of that."
The president also announced plans to boost technical capacity in the Affordable Housing programme. This will entail onboarding 4000 young graduates from Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions and universities.
These graduates will be attached to private firms participating in the programme, where they will gain hands-on experience under a structured supervision framework.
Ruto required firms participating in the programme to mentor and monitor the 4000 young professionals as the government worked on a support framework to ensure accountability.
While referencing his campaign promises, which revolved around providing jobs for the youth, Ruto noted that the Affordable Housing initiative currently employed 320,000 Kenyans, but the goal in the near future was to double the number to over 600,000 through a second shift system and more aggressive rollout of construction projects.
The housing deposit requirement was reduced from 10 per cent to 5 per cent for the purchase of Affordable Housing apartments. This was part of efforts to operationalise the Affordable Housing Programme, a key pillar of President Ruto’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
Beyond the lowered deposit, new regulations under the Affordable Housing Regulations, 2024, have also established a legal framework for a more inclusive and transparent allocation process across all income groups.
