Daily Times

Affordable housing for salaried and even unbanked classes is a subject very close to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s heart. In fact one of his first and boldest claims ever was that he would set forces in motion that would enable millions upon millions of poor Pakistanis to own homes. Such plans obviously provide a lot to celebrate. If the state can help salaried people with easy home loans and also the unbanked sector with targeted subsidies to build their own homes, nothing like it. But just as all this was being celebrated, even if the government clearly aimed too high with the promise of millions of houses, another one of the government’s own smart ideas dashed all such hopes for a long time, even if it did inflate the real estate sector.

And that was the controversial amnesty scheme that allowed black money into housing and construction, no questions asked, which just opened the floodgates of all shades of ill-gotten wealth back into the country and into the sectors and industries related to real estate. There’s no denying that the flurry of investments pushed the entire sector up and also proved rather beneficial for labourers that work on construction sites. But it’s not mentioned how the big influx of money priced houses right out of the approach of the working classes; with the fate of the unbanked sector not even requiring much commentary.

When the corrupt people who were allowed to whiten their money in this way made big gains, obviously they used parts of the fresh earnings on luxury items from abroad; which played no small part in bloating the current account deficit as well. So the PM is only partially right that international commodity trends are pushing up inflation which in turn is making it difficult for ordinary Pakistanis to own homes; because the biggest part in pricing housing out of their budgets has been played by the government itself. And now that prices are well and truly out of control, it is trying to reverse some of the incentives that were provided to arrest some of the extraordinary growth.

Therefore, now we’re at a stage that if affordable housing is going to be a government policy, it will have to be worked on all over again. *