President Museveni, has expressed concern over the alarming housing deficit in the country, attributing the problem to rapid urbanization.
He said, currently, Uganda faces a housing deficit of 2.5 million housing units, noting that the shortfall is distributed across both rural and urban areas, with the acute need in urban areas due to rapid urbanization, of over 5 percent per year.
“This is a pressing challenge, but also a market. Many of our citizens, especially the urban poor, lack decent and affordable housing,” President Museveni said, calling for a thriving, creative, and socially responsible construction industry.
He was represented by the Minister of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development, Judith Nabakooba, during the Homes and Gardeners Expo 2025 at Sheraton Hotel in Kampala over the weekend. The expo was organised under theme: “Access to quality living and a path to green future.”
in a speech read form by Nabakooba, President Museveni commended organizers of the expo for taking a right path towards providing creative solutions that will offer the marginalized access to affordable and high quality housing.
“I call upon all the international exhibitors to invest in Uganda and take advantage of the favorable investment climate in our country,” he added.
Highlighting a number of policies and regulations put in place to guide the construction sector, he noted that, this is intended to create an atmosphere for the sector to flourish.
Among the policies and regulations includes the National Housing Policy, which provides a framework for housing development, the National Urban Policy that manages the urbanization policy, and condominium Property Act that guides vertical housing development.
Others are; the Physical Planning Act that declared the whole country a planning area, and Landlord Tenant Act for harmonious relationship between landlords and tenants among others.
Dr Edwin Musiime, the head Home Owners Associationnment and all the stakeholders in the housing sector have to pay attention to the quality of housing, affordability, low cost housing, and encouraging government on physical planning.
He said they are trying to draw campaigns on how slums can be eliminated in both the urban, suburbs and rural areas.
“Gone are the days when we were constructing bungalows, we are going to think of building vertically so that we can conserve and reserve space.”
He added: “For every person who builds, there must be a good green ratio; good quality of air, good waste management systems and ensuring we have greening.”
This year also marks 15 years since the inception of Homes Expo that has championed property revolution in Uganda and East Africa. As part of the celebrations, Dr Edwin Musiime, , launched a book titled: Real Estate; Rethinking Africa’s Housing Future.
Mr Lazarus Mugabi, Board member, AREA Uganda, said housing remains a big challenge, with a few individuals able to access and afford decent houses. He stressed that for any house to be affordable, someone should be able to spend not more than 30 percent of their income.
“What is affordable to me may not be affordable to him because of differences in our income levels,” he said, calling upon the government to put policies favourable for developers to design products that target first time buyers.
He added that what determines the price of projects is the cost of infrastructure, suggesting that if government can come in to lend a hand in putting in place infrastructures such as roads, water and power lines, that would impact the cost of the project.
“Our role is to lobby government such that when a project comes, they can go ahead and put that infrastructure so that the developers can develop projects that are affordable and accessible.”
