Authorities in Angola have promised to fight speculation in the Luanda real-estate market, which has boosted house prices as high as $2-million, the state-run Jornal de Angola said on Friday.
”The level of price speculation in real estate in Luanda is very worrying, and it makes the life of citizens more difficult,” the newspaper quoted Mota Liz, Deputy Minister of Urbanism and Environment, as saying.
The Angolan government, working with a South African firm, has for years tried a scheme under which it tried to build ”affordable social” houses in the country.
But houses that were built under this project cost $180 000, an amount that is out of reach for most Angolans.
Angola, with production of 1,873-million barrels of oil per day on average, recently overtook Nigeria as Africa’s largest oil producer, according to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries figures.
Liz said the fight against speculation in the real estate will take the form of the government developing a ”housing programme where all citizens would be able to purchase homes at acceptable conditions and at very low prices”.
Last month, Irish rock star-turned-political-activist Bob Geldof allegedly charged that oil-rich Angola was ”run by criminals” who build houses in the Bay of Luanda that are more luxurious than those in the exclusive Chelsea and Park Lane neighbourhoods of London, while most of its citizens live in abject poverty. — Sapa-AFP