The Kenyan Government just like any other governments of the world have among other responsibilities; to plan and organize her citizens into realizing descent livelihoods through creating amenities that will guarantee basic social infrastructure such as hospitals, roads, schools, markets and safety. This is realized through planning in various governmental sectors such as Education, Agriculture, Trade, Energy, Finance, International Co-operation and sports.
Planning provides a guide for action against a period of time. Plans can direct everyone’s actions toward desired outcomes such as bettering living standards of citizens and improving service delivery. Planning improves resource utilization; it is against a plan that budgets are made and sources of funds identified. Plans provide motivation and commitment to work and service delivery. Plans set performance standards and allows flexibility for better results.
The National Development Plan, Vision 2030 Strategy targets to provide 200,000 housing units annually for all income earning levels. This is geared towards ensuring that civil servants and other working masses access descent housing. Kenya has only been able to supply 50,000 new housing units since the inception of this programme, meaning the country has not realized the target within the National Development Plan since it’s already faced with a shortage of about 2 million housing units.
Most of the housing units are definitely going to be occupied by private sector; 80% targeting the high-end market with the remaining percentage for the middle-income populations. Rapid urbanization which has been at a constant 4.3% between 2019 and 2022 has put more pressure on the need for housing, infrastructure and other related amenities. Due to this pressure, 61% of town dwellers are living in slum areas. This means that the housing project may very well help in the urban areas.
The government has therefore made the Affordable Housing Program (AHP) the centerpiece of all efforts geared to providing decent, safe, and affordable housing for Kenyans especially in the urban setup. The target is definitely to settle civil servants and other government workers whose salaries cannot support descent houses within urban areas.
Away from providing houses in the programme; government thought this would help create employment for the Jua Kali sector for persons in areas of masonry, carpentry, plumbing and electricians. From Jua Kali artisans fabricating doors and windows, to mama Mandazi na Chai where construction site would be a job and wealth creation facility like no other. The economic impact of the Program is expected to raise the GDP from 7 percent to 14 %.
The affordable housing project (AHP) was first introduced to teachers and civil servants in 2017 and because it had not been properly introduced to teachers, it died at inception. By then, government had proposed 1.5% deduction. Today, government intends to deduct 3%. At completion, contributors would be allowed to buy those houses under a friendly arrangement such as paying in installments with 700,000 civil servants in the country expected to participate.
Teachers, civil servants and their unions have vehemently expressed their negative opinion over the same unless the employer and government think of improving their salaries. The last time teachers were compensated was in 2017. Teachers’ pay-slips are already strained and may not have any strength left to support any other program unless something is done in terms of salary increment. It is against this background that Kenya National Union of Teachers made a 60% salary increment proposal to the employer in the 2021-2025 CBA.
Additionally, 78% of teachers working in Kenya are staffed in rural areas where they have already settled and have built their own houses funded by their Saccos and other teacher investment arrangements. 17% of those working in urban areas are mostly living with spouses who are not teachers and who may have purchased family homes. Only 5% may want to benefit from the program willingly.
Furthermore, 52% of teachers are female; regardless of the fact that they stay in urban, peri-urban or rural areas, this translates to the fact that quite a number of them already have families and have settled with their family investments. They therefore may not be beneficiaries of the housing programme since the responsibility of making homes is culturally bestowed to their male counterparts.
With the repealed delocalization policy, chances that teachers may teach away from their localities are low. With the government’s plan of building these housing units in specific areas of habitation may lock out teachers. Even those willing to have them may find it tricky to secure a unit far away from their areas of operation.
An obvious reason of teachers having already committed their salaries beyond the a third rule, they are wondering if in this circumstances the law shall be put aside to have them participate in the housing scheme.
Moving forward, government should consider looking at the data on various groupings within teachers and see if it is necessary to have a conversation with teachers and their representatives so as to have a proper understanding of the approaches they may effectively use in implementing the program.
We need the public participation act of 2018 to be put into practice. Teachers should be reached through their union for their opinion to count in decisions that affects their lives. Kenya is of age to normalize involving the affected persons in decisions that matter in their lives.
By Collins Oyuu
The writer is the Secretary General of the Kenya National Union of Teachers.
