Nick Twinamatsiko’s literary offering titled “Mizigo Money: A Guide to Efficient Investment in Housing in Uganda With analysis, drawings and cost calculations” is timely. That is because Ugandans, like all human beings, will always be searching for shelter. It is a basic need. We all need a place of abode.
However, owing to a fast growing population and rural-urban migration, Uganda teeters are on the cliff of a housing crisis. This crisis is characterised by stringent mortgage conditions; where a 30–40 percent down payment is required based on credit quality. As you know, our credit is only as good as our declining incomes.
Then, there are the high interest rates. As of August 7, 2024, the Bank of Uganda's benchmark interest rate is 10 percent, which is a 25 basis point decrease from the previous rate of 10.25 percent.
But this decrease has not been met by a corresponding increase in earnings, so it is still high. Then there is the issue of costly construction materials, inadequately skilled construction workers, and building designs that have no sense of economy.
You truly have to give it to the author. This subject is beclouded by the complexities that come with rental fractions amidst rapid urbanisation and population growth, with its associated land fragmentation.
Yet the author simplifies everything. There are facts, figures, designs, estimations, calculations and orthodoxies which facilitate and, paradoxically, stand in the way of home construction. To be sure, the double-edged sword of construction approaches cuts to the very heart of the matter.
Also, there are certain sociological realties, which show us how much Uganda has changed, and how much it has seemingly stayed the same.
“When Kampala was a city of seven hills and had a population of 70,000 people, Kololo was a well-organised hill that everyone dreamt of owning property on. It seems even when the hills grow to 70 and the population to 7 million, Kololo will still be the only well-organised hill. The ultimate dream of the Ugandan elite is to live on Kololo hill; it should instead be that of turning any remote Wakiso hill into a Kololo. It can be a hill with Mizigo, but with a high level of planning and organisation,” writes the author.
This ‘systems thinking’ seeks to separate the whole from its parts in order to reveal the interrelationships and patterns in construction and what people aspire to with respect to the same. True, this thinking need not be static.
However, this is the case in many parts of the world. That is why Beverly Hills in USA and the French Riviera or Côte d'Azur on the Mediterranean coast of southeastern France, have been metaphors for wealth and glamour since time out of mind.
In chapter five, titled “Public Housing And Private Housing”, the author asks question many of us ask under our breaths: Should the supply of housing be the responsibility of the state or the private sector and individual household? Through the use of research, the author provides a history of housing in Uganda. He quotes and cites extensively to offer a well-rounded picture covering every conceivable base in this question.
All told, government must play a pivotal role in building more affordable housing through planning reform, new towns, and increasing the number of social and affordable homes. It can also use land trusts and land banks to secure land for affordable housing.
In chapter 13, titled Computation of Construction Costs (II), the author “computes costs for the construction of a unit in an apartment block, if fired clay bricks are used for walls, and none of the cost-cutting measures described in the preceding chapters are applied.
If interlocking bricks are used, and the cost-cutting measures are applied, the costs can drop by up to 30 percent,” says the author, as he drops the microphone to reveal yet more winning advice. Indeed, Mizigo Money is an illuminating book, one that will positively impact housing in Uganda, if taken up at the level of policy.
