State Department for Housing and Urban Development Permanent Secretary Charles Hinga has explained why housing is expensive in Nairobi.
Speaking during an interview with KTN, Hinga said housing is expensive in Nairobi because the cost of land in the capital is expensive.
The PS said there are four key drivers as to why housing in Nairobi is unaffordable and unavailable.
"The first one is land. Land in Nairobi according to a recent study is the most expensive in the continent. So you can't have expensive land and affordable housing in the same sentence," Hinga said.
He said it is why the government consciously decided to provide land for the housing projects at no cost.
The other reason is the cost of construction in Kenya is very high.
"So, again we took away a lot of taxes that made the cost of construction high so that we can bring down the cost of housing," he said.
The third is the cost of processes.
Hinga said during construction, almost everywhere one steps in there is a charge they have to pay.
"Almost everywhere you go you are going to be charged. The county will charge you, the MCA will charge you and so on," the PS said.
This comes as President William Ruto announced that civil servants will start paying 3 per cent of their income to the Housing Fund to create a pool of funds for the affordable housing project.
