Sunday 19 / May / 2024
Muscat: Oman is among the top 5 countries in the world in social housing programmes with 91 per cent of the families in the Sultanate owning their own houses.
Dr Khalfan bin Saeed Al Shuaili, Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, said during the ministry’s first media meeting to address the transformation programme for the year 2020-2021.
“The population has doubled 37 times in Muscat within 50 years, and that the population in Oman may reach between 7.1 million to 7.5 million people by 2040,” Al Shuaili.
“This requires the provision of 911,400 new housing units,” he added on Monday.
Speaking about the ministry’s transformation programme for the year 2020-2021, he indicated that the current status of the sector is represented by a large number of plots, a small and scattered development percentage, high cost and poor service delivery, poor quality urban planning, unplanned urban expansion, and inconsistency between land use and activities, he said.
The transformation plan of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning includes creating a work environment that stimulates creativity and innovation, enhancing efficiency and complementarity, and a quick wins programme that contains 30 initiatives including the Urban Laboratory.
“These initiatives are represented in the acceleration of the implementation of social housing programmes, the mechanism of taking advantage of ready-made investment sites, speeding up their offering and promotion, finding a solution to expedite the decision on technical surveys and cadastral drawings that require a field visit, expanding the establishment of real estate registry branches, and granting public managers the powers to decide on and terminate pending transactions,” he said.
The initiatives also include studying the status of residential land applications, following up on performance, training and speeding up the completion of transactions in the unified service hall in all governorates, improving revenue efficiency and studying raising them.
“Establishing a mechanism for urgently deciding on requests for proof and registration of ownership, preparing a guide of powers and a governance framework, and determining sites for model plans in line with the urban strategy in accordance with modern standards,” the minister said.
An official from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning also spoke exclusively to Times of Oman and said that more than 450 employees of the ministry have left work during 2020 until now, either by submitting their resignations or according to the retirement system.”
His Excellency confirmed that upon his appointment as Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, he found that in 2019 the number of requests to the minister’s office reached 50,000, ie an average of 150 requests per day. “Now the number of requests that reach the office does not exceed 10 requests,” he added.
The reason for the decline in the requests is because His Excellency has formed an internal committee that responds to all these requests, especially the outstanding ones during the COVID-19 period, an official from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning said exclusively to Times of Oman.
Applications for residential lands
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning said that the total number of applications for residential lands totalled 447,612, of which 178,296 were for males. This constitutes 40 per cent of the total requests, and the number of applications for women reached 269,316, which constitutes 60 per cent of the total housing applications registered at the level of Sultanate.
The ministry completed, “The number of lands that were distributed during the past 10 years amounted to 343,692 and the share of women was 268,898, which constitutes 78 per cent of the total number of distributed lands.”
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning also confirmed that the construction rate in residential plots during the past 10 years amounted to between 2 per cent to 19 per cent, while the percentage of owned and non-constructed lands in the Governorate of Muscat reached 40 per cent while the percentage of owned and constructed lands in the governorate amounted to 19 per cent.
As for Al Buraimi Governorate, the percentage of owned and constructed lands reached 10.4 per cent, the percentage of owned and constructed lands in Al Dhahirah Governorate reached 2.3 per cent, the percentage of owned and constructed lands in Dhofar Governorate amounted to 7 per cent and 13 per cent the percentage of owned and constructed lands in Musandam Governorate.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning clarified the most important results of the 100-day programme initiatives that more than 8,000 transactions were completed in the Minister’s office, 80 per cent of the usufruct database were completed, 7,685 requests from requests for proof and registration of the property were decided upon, 21 per cent of the delayed amounts of the usufruct contracts were collected (OMR3 million), 34 sites for model plans in the various governorates of the Sultanate were identified, 21 workshops for urban strategy and the preparation of an implementation completed plan for the year of 2021.
The most important results of the 100-day programme initiatives are also 53 per cent, the percentage of commitment from the total amounts allocated to housing assistance for the years 2019 and 2020, 80 per cent the percentage of the reduction of mail referred to the office of His Excellency the Minister after granting powers to the Directors General, 421 investment sites ready to be launched, 228 employees who have been trained and qualified on the cadastral technical and cadastral drawings.
“Two branches of the real estate registry were launched in each of Bank Muscat and Bank Dhofar, 7,880 requests of cadastral technical and cadastral drawings were completed, and finally 10-15 per cent, the percentage of reducing unnecessary procedures in the departments of social housing and projects,” the minister added.
