The National Housing Corporation Act 1990 undergoes a mega review, through a series of regional consultation workshops, which started with Southern Region today at the Gateway hotel in Port Moresby.
Acting Managing Director for National Housing Corporation Mr. Abel Tol stressed on the significance of this review, stating that there is a growing concern in the need for good and affordable housing in all suburbs and localities around Papua New Guinea.
“The purpose of this consultation is to review the NHC Act 1990, as it is important to assess its effectiveness and relevance, despite being the key framework for our housing operations in the country.”
The acting Managing Director clarified that the main objectives of the consultative meeting are to review current policies, identify blunders, propose recommendations, and establish an updated legal framework.
Mr. Tol further alluded that diverse perspective from various stakeholders that involves the housing development policy formulation and community engagement will be brought forth, to evaluate the existing act and to identify areas that needs improvements, as well as making necessary amendments.
“The involvement of stakeholder engagement is basically to get views from the experiences that we have in our different works of life, different departments, purposely to see how best we can help NHC and the country as whole in terms of putting development mechanisms and legal frameworks.”
Tol also stated that a lot of rural urban drift has been going on in all major cities in Papua New Guinea so it is good to review this act in order to aid the general population of PNG by providing affordable housing to all classes of people.
The reviewing of policies in the act will be directly aligned with the government’s Medium-Term Development Plan IV and other long-term national agendas, in which NHC will focus on proposing collective measures to improve housing in the country.
The Southern Regional Consultative workshop was already held today and so, corresponding workshops for other regions will follow hereafter.
