President William Ruto (centre) during the launch of Mabera Affordable Housing Project in Migori County.
The government has entered into Sh49.5 billion affordable housing contracts on lands with missing title deeds, adding to the spate of confusion that has surrounded the programme amid public distrust.
This raises questions on how Kenyans buying houses from the projects will get titles to own the units in the absence of original titles at a time when the Affordable Housing Programme (AHP) continues to operate in a confused environment.
“The state department (for Housing) entered into contracts with various contractors for the construction of affordable houses across the country at a total contract sum of Sh49,456,549,086. However, land ownership documents for sites where the projects are being implemented were not provided for audit,” Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu notes in an audit for the year to June 2024.
The report notes the issue could hinder the sale of the houses to the public since sectional titles cannot be produced without the original title deed.
The state department’s action, however, just adds to the conundrum that has been the AHP, with unclear communication about targets, achievements and even progress, amid disinterest by Kenyans for the houses sheltering President William Ruto’s biggest promise to Kenyans.
The state department signed the high-value contracts on lands with missing titles despite recent revelations of how ownership of land belonging to the Nairobi County Government was transferred to a private developer in 2019, who then used the title deed to take a Sh1.9 billion bank loan.
Jabavu Village Ltd
The Jeevanjee land, which houses one of the government’s AHP projects, was initially fully owned by the county government before ownership changed, and a private firm, Jabavu Village Ltd, was allocated 80 percent of the land ownership under mysterious circumstances.
“The bank debt is to be utilised for the completion of the project development. The total banking facility is Sh1.9 billion, and Jabavu Village has drawn down Sh450 million so far against work certificates,” the developer said last year.
The State has been pushing the AHP with senior government officials touting its achievements, even when it has meant revising promises made to Kenyans earlier and confusion in figures they have provided.
This has been despite a lacklustre attitude among Kenyans, with only 1 in 559 adults saving at the Boma Yangu platform to own the AHP houses and the majority of Kenyans planning to build instead of buying houses.
At first, the target was to build 250,000 houses per year before it was lowered to 200,000 units along the way.
Since President Ruto came to power more than two years ago now, the promise has not been fulfilled. The government says it is now in the final stages of plans to launch the first 4,888 units this month and that 140,000 houses are at different stages.
“I will be releasing 4,888 by the end of March, and every quarter, I will possibly be releasing between 4,000 and 5,000. In the next one year, I should be having close to 140,000 houses,” Lands and Housing Cabinet Secretary (CS) Alice Wahome said last month.
The figure by CS Wahome on the number of houses under construction differs from what the Treasury indicates in the 2025 budget policy statement (BPS), which puts the figure at 124,000 houses.
The CS data came on February 19, just as BPS had been released.
The government has also not been clear on the number of jobs created through AHP projects, with public officials disputing figures in official government documents.
Ms Wahome, during the interview on February 19, indicated that 1.12 million jobs had been created for the 140,000 houses under construction, with about eight Kenyans reporting to work in each of the houses.
Treasury in the BPS, however, reckons that “The AHP has created over 164,000 jobs through the housing value chain.”
In September last year, the State Department for Housing said 160,000 jobs had been created across 100,000 housing units that were at various stages.
The different figures being thrown at Kenyans have added to the confusion, even as many Kenyans still struggle to understand the use of the 1.5 percent Housing Levy being deducted from salaries since July 2023.
When the current administration first floated the affordable housing idea, it was marketed as a saving, and Kenyans promised that they would be refunded in seven years if they did not buy houses.
But the government then changed it into a tax in the Finance Act 2023 and now says its use is not to build actual houses but to facilitate construction through amenities such as roads and sewerage.
After the houses are built, Kenyans will have to buy them on payment terms going to 30 years, with Kenyans earning above Sh150,000 set to access at market rates.
“This money is not supposed to give you a house, it’s basically the offtake. It’s basically money that is helping us build the house. After that it’s you who actually pays for that house. We are not building and giving you, it’s like tenant purchase,” CS Wahome said.
It will cost Kenyans accessing the houses under social housing- the lowest of earners- 3 percent interest to own the houses, those under AHP 5 percent and Kenyans buying at market rates 9 percent.
Economists have faulted the project’s model as one that passes unnecessary costs to taxpayers, with paying market rates for houses that have already been subsidized by a levy from Kenyan workers viewed as a double cost.
“The evolving nature of this programme with what was initially a saving turning into a tax then the collections being used to purchase Treasury Bills which takes the money out of circulation and reduces people’s purchasing power has been the biggest setback,” says Mr Ken Gichinga, Chief Economist at Mentoria Economics.
President William Ruto lays the foundation stone for the construction of affordable housing units in Buuri, Meru County, on Thursday, January 25.
By December 2024, the government had collected Sh88.7 billion from the Housing Levy on Kenyan workers and employers, out of which Sh46 billion had been invested into Treasury bills.
Mr Gichinga argues that it would have been more impactful to psyche up businesses through a good environment that would then create jobs and enable more Kenyans to afford homes rather than tax them to build houses they will not afford.
“What Kenya badly needs is not AHP but strong economic fundamentals that include low taxes and a good operating environment for businesses to thrive. The current model doesn’t solve the underlying problem of weak demand in Kenya.”
The 2025 BPS observed that on Boma Yangu- the platform where Kenyans register to own houses under the AHP- 547,000 persons have so far registered, but just 52,000 have saved Sh2.3 billion towards owning the houses.
The 52,000 active participants in the AHP are a mere 0.18 percent of the population of Kenyans aged 20 and above.
A 2023/24 Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) housing survey shows that more than half of Kenyans (55.5 percent) prefer to build their houses, while 12.5 percent prefer to buy.
In terms of actual plans to own homes, however, nearly two-thirds of Kenyans (62.3 percent) have no plans and among those who have such plans, those working to construct their own homes are six times higher than those planning to buy houses.
“62.6 per cent of tenants who wanted to own homes had not made plans towards home ownership. However, 11.2 per cent were saving to construct a house, while 10.7 per cent were saving to buy land,” KNBS stated.
An affordable housing project in Ngara, Nairobi, on December 4, 2020.
Other challenges facing the government in its plan for the AHP has been pointed as the sustainability of incomes of targeted beneficiaries who will be required to commit monthly payments for up to 30 years and face evictions upon default.
This poses a risk to the sustainability of the programme, with most of the target beneficiaries being Kenyans in the informal sector which are prone to instances of job losses or low to no incomes at times.
Layoffs
“Perennial income shocks can cause the assets to be repossessed which is a problem since the facility has already had a low uptake,” Mr Gichinga observes.
A central bank survey noted that close to half (42 percent) of companies in the country fired casual workers who were the biggest victims of layoffs in the face of a tough economy, most of the workers being targets of the programme.
The Ministry says anyone who defaults on making monthly payments on the houses along the way will be kicked out, a fact previous economic studies and economists have noted will pose a huge risk.
This is because majority of the beneficiaries are the poorest in the society and their incomes are not stable or guaranteed.
The risk of rich, influential individuals abusing the programme to amass houses for themselves to then sell at market rates has been floated, especially after the Treasury tried to sneak in a change to the law to allow one person to own more than one house last year.
Houses in the affordable housing programme being constructed at Bondeni Estate in Nakuru Town East.
The Ministry says that the affordable housing board, which oversees the programme, will have the final say on who gets what house.
The key metric for assessment is one’s income, with the lowest of earners put under social housing, whose houses are cheaper but with relatively smaller spaces and fewer amenities.
CS Wahome said that once a person buys a house through the AHP, they will be issued with a sectional title which expires after 99 years, upon which the person holding the original land title could vary terms of the ownership agreement and see home earners required to pay even more cash.
This raises eyebrows should title deeds for the lands holding the AHP projects be in the names of private entities and individuals, as opposed to the government as the law requires.
This is in the wake of details that a company linked to controversial Turkish national and President Ruto ally, Harun Aydin, was shortlisted to construct 100,000 houses.
Mr Aydin was deported from Kenya under controversial circumstances in 2021.
The Nation last week asked the State Department for Housing to provide details on the actual number of houses the government has completed under the AHP so far, actual number of houses under construction and jobs created.
We also asked the state department to provide a breakdown of the specific professions being engaged, the value of contracts the government has entered into with developers under the AHP, principles guiding land ownership under the AHP projects and explain where missing titles for the lands with Sh49.5 billion projects under construction are.
Questions to Housing Principal Secretary (PS) Charles Hinga also included an explanation of circumstances under which lands with title deeds in the names of private developers were approved for AHP projects and whether developers in AHP projects are being required to commit to getting materials they use from handpicked suppliers.
The PS did not pick calls or respond to messages to his SMS and on WhatsApp, he ‘blue ticked’.
A source from the State Department said the PS was “not keen on that engagement.”
The government plans to construct 363,860 houses under the AHP over the three years starting July 2025, including 217,654 affordable housing units, 80,909 social houses and 65,297 institutional housing units, the 2025 BPS notes.
pmburu@ke.nationmedia.com
