Mozambique wants to build 15,000 houses for war veterans

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Mozambique wants to build 15,000 houses for war veterans

9:07 CAT | 23 Mar 2016

Mozambique’s Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Eusebio Lambo, on Monday laid the first stone in a project to build 15,000 houses for veterans.

The inaugural ceremony was held in the town of Dondo, in the central province of Sofala, although eventually the houses will be built in all provinces, the exact number depending on how many veterans live in each province.

The beneficiaries will be veterans both of the national liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial rule, between 1964 and 1974, and of the war of destabilization that raged between 1977 and 1992.

According to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent weekly “O Pais”, Lambo stressed that building decent houses for veterans is envisaged in the government’s five year programme for 2015-2019. The houses will have a useful life of between 50 and 100 years, and will be sturdy enough to resist earthquakes of up to seven degrees on the Richter scale,

They will have solar panels to generate power, and each house will have a water tank that harvests rain water and can hold 5,000 litres.

The real unit cost of each house is 850,140 meticais (about 17,350 US dollars, at current exchange rates). But the government has agreed with its partner in this project, Smart House Africa Ltd, that each house will be sold for only 469,800 meticais. Any veteran buying one of the houses will have 15 years to pay, at a monthly rate of 2,610 meticais.

Smart House Africa is a South African company which works to provide durable and affordable low cost housing. On its website, the company says that its standard house is built from “a state-of-the-art system of steel frames and foam cement boards”.

The material used, it adds, does not crack, leak or burn. It promises “excellent insulation: warm in winter and cool in summer”.

Source: AIM