IDBZ sets aside $30 million for housing projects

Lovemore Zigara, Midlands Correspondent
THE Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) has set aside $30 million to be used in housing development across the country this year.

Last year Treasury approved the bank’s request to issue bonds of over $100 million in the next five years for it to undertake infrastructure development projects. Some of the areas earmarked for the housing projects include Harare where 370 stands will be serviced, Kariba which will deliver in excess of 1 000 stands while Hwange will have 1 000 in Empumalanga Surbub.

IDBZ projects director Mr Desmond Matete said the financial institution will focus on servicing of stands before prospective home seekers can start building their houses.

“As IDBZ our focus is to eliminate the bottlenecks in the provision of housing provision in the country. We are concentrating more on site servicing so that we have quality roads done as well as water and sewer reticulation,” he said.

“We want to ensure that we have got fully serviced stands before home seekers can go to our co-operating partners being building societies to then look for money to build their superstructures. We have set aside $30 million for this year’s projects.”

The IDBZ boss said by accelerating site servicing, which is no longer affordable to local authorities and private developers, the financial institution will contribute in terms of accelerating housing delivery in the country in line with Zim-Asset.

The country has a housing backlog of about 1,25 million units. The bank recently started courting foreign shareholders to attain a $250 million equity capital by year end as it seeks to strengthen its capital base, which stands at $50 million.

In its financial results for the period, IDBZ’s total assets grew by 22 percent to $159,94 million from $130,69 million recorded in the previous year. This was due to a capital injection of $23 million from shareholders, while the Zimbabwe Asset Management Company took over non-performing loans worth $1.8 million.

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