The Ministry of Housing and Water will be spending more than $780M to build about 460 more house lots in Fort Ordnance Housing Scheme and several other Region Six areas.

A Government Information Agency (GINA) press release said Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali made this disclosure during a cabinet outreach exercise conducted at Fort Ordnance last week. Ali also said $234M will be spent to develop infrastructure in the new areas to benefit about 2000 people. The tendering process for the project has been completed and is awaiting the approval of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

“We are hoping to have this contract awarded by mid February so that we can commence works in this area…this is part of government’s overall plan for the region…the government believes strongly in social and pro poor development,” Ali said. He also said he was hopeful that at the end of the implementation of the Second Low Income Settlement Programme his ministry would have more than 2,000 new house lots available in the region. In 2009, about $1.6B was allocated to the ministry to implement programmes and expand the housing sector. To date, through the Ministry’s massive housing drive, over 5000 applications have been processed.

Meanwhile, in the water sector Ali told residents that a $1.6B water treatment plant is being built at Queenstown, Corriverton. The construction of the new plant forms part of GWI’s strategy to boost the quality of service for residents from Number 51 Village to Moleson Creek.

On completion it will benefit an additional 18,000 residents from Number 74 Village to Moleson Creek and will have the capacity to produce up to 5.5 milliliters of purified water per day.

According to GINA, the first phase of the project involved the construction of the Number 56 Village Water Treatment Plant which was successfully completed in 2008 at a cost of $1.1B. The two plants will provide about 33,000 residents with improved water supply. The project is expected to be completed by August.