By I Ngare
Thousands of Jubilee supporters were glued to their screens yesterday watching Rao. It is unfortunate that in an hour-long interview, most of them came out with only one thing; “I’ll negotiate with landlords to reduce house rents within my first 90 days in office.” They either think this is impossible or that Raila is going to interfere with private business by imposing price control practises. Lol!
I thought, how can Jubilee supporters take pride in being so ignorant. But let’s cut them some slack. They only take pride in what they know, which is very little.
NASA believes in free market enterprise. Raila Odinga understands that house prices, like prices of other goods and services, are determined by the interaction of demand supply. But Raila also understands that factors such as land-use, development and construction regulatory costs account for up to 25-35 percent of overall construction costs. If we can get all landlords in a roundtable discussion where the government offers to reduce these regulatory costs by even 10 percent, then rents will drastically go down.
In NASA we believe that every single Kenyan is entitled to affordable and habitable housing. We also understand that the biting inflation under Jubilee has sent property prices flying over the roof. We need to restore our economy so that no family has to make the choice of whether to pay rent, or buy milk for breakfast every morning.
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