Effectiveness of the National Housing Authority in delivering houses in Lusaka.

Abstract

Housing is a basic human need and has been declared a human right by the United Nations. Despite housing being declared as such, there are still challenges to its provision. In Zambia, the government’s response to this challenge was to establish the National Housing Authority (NHA) through an Act of Parliament in 1971 to cater for Zambia’s housing requirements. Lusaka, being the most populated city in Zambia, has the highest deficit of houses. It was in this light that this study was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the National Housing Authority to deliver houses in Lusaka. The aim of the study was to ascertain how efficient the National Housing Authority was in delivering houses in Lusaka. The research design involved a case study of the delivery of houses by the NHA in Lusaka at two NHA housing estates at Nyumba Yanga and Northgate Gardens as study areas. The sample size was 96 house occupants and four key institutional informants. Stratified sampling was used to select housing categories in each housing estate. Simple random sampling was used to select respondents in each housing category. Questionnaires were administered to these respondents. Four key institutional informants were purposively sampled to obtain primary data from them through interview schedules. Secondary data was obtained from different literature sources. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics for data that was collected using quantitative techniques while content analysis was used to analyse data obtained from review of some documents and field observations. The study established that NHA delivers three housing categories that are built using both local and imported building materials. Public Private Partnerships have been created for house construction. The capacity of the NHA to deliver houses is both financially and technically inadequate. However, NHA has the management capacity to construct more houses. Perceptions of residents in NHA delivered houses are that the houses are very expensive as compared to other housing estates in Lusaka. The residents are not provided with social amenities such as play parks and after-sales services but have good access to water supply, electricity and sewage system. Recommendations are that the government funds the NHA to enhance its financial capacity. NHA should build more low cost houses to cushion the current demand for this category of houses. Due to limited land available for housing development in Lusaka, NHA should consider increasing the vertical expansion of its housing estates rather than the current horizontal expansion Key words: National Housing Authority, effectiveness, house delivery, capacity, perception