Real estate developers start reevaluation of their assets

Dar es Salaam. Government-owned real estate developers have started re-evaluating their houses and apartments as they race against time to meet a directive by Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa.

During his last week tour of a number of real estate projects of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Watumishi Housing Company (WHC) and the National Housing Corporation (NHC), Mr Majaliwa ordered the developers to reevaluate their assets with a view to ensuring that they could be accessed by low-income earners.

Speaking during the 45th graduation ceremony of the Institute of Finance Management (IFM) at the weekend, Mr Majaliwa reiterated the order, saying real estate developers must make their projects commercially competitive.

“A few days ago, I visited the housing units and realised that though they are well constructed, they remain unoccupied and neither are there people to buy them. This is because the prices are prohibitive, so I ordered them to reconsider their prices,” he noted.

Some of the housing projects where Mr Majaliwa paid a visit to in Dar es Salaam included 161 unit at Toangoma, 820 units at Mtoni Kijichi and 439 units at Dungu in Kigamboni District.

He said at the IFM graduation that his intention was to ensure that the units were made available at prices that would be affordable to traders, ordinary citizens and students seeking accommodation.

And in response to the Prime Minister’s order, NSSF said yesterday that it had already embarked on the implementation of his directive.

The NSSF director general, Mr William Erio, said in a statement yesterday that the order meant to ensure that the completed houses were sold or rented to the public as a way of giving Tanzanians access to decent houses and for the NSSF to start earning income from the projects.

He said NSSF immediately sought the services of a professional valuer who will arrange the price of renting or selling the houses.

“We have involved the government valuer and we are already at the site evaluating the assets,” he said.

The government valuer, Ms Evelyne Mugasha, said her team had arrived at the sites and that they would assess and provide market prices for the houses.

She said by the close of business today a team – comprising valuers from her office, in collaboration with those from the ministry of Land, Housing and Human Settlements Development and with NSSF, will have been set up, ready for the task.

“Today is a preliminary review. Our experts will come to take all the information and make an assessment. We will also conduct a research that will allow us to determine the prices. We will complete it within a short period of time so that Tanzanians come to buy or rent these houses,” said Ms Mugasha.