Maskani: Bamburi’s Answer to Affordable Housing Query

Bamburi Cement has in recent years supported the development of affordable housing in the country by offering its customers free customised low-cost house models and technical support during construction.

Through the Maskani initiative, the cement maker provides customers with access to funding through partner lenders, architectural drawings, bills of quantities, technical support and construction guidance.

The company has developed 30 architectural drawings for residential homes —bungalows, maisonettes and incremental houses of various sizes, which can be built at a cost of Sh500,000 to Sh5.2 million.

“The customer will pick from the set of designs and we will then link them to a financial institution which will provide the money. We will give them a bill of quantities and then connect them with our distributors who will provide all the materials,” Bamburi Cement said during the June 2016 launch of Maskani.

Bamburi Maskani has so far served more than 500 home builders since its inauguration four years ago.

Maskani was initially only available in Nairobi before it was extended to cover Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Thika, Kiambu, Meru, Machakos, Murang’a, Bondo, Homabay, and Migori.

Customers of the Bamburi affordable housing scheme benefit from the company’s in-house team of architects, quantity surveyors, and engineers. The company disclosed that more than 1,500 technical visits to the Maskani customers’ sites were conducted in 2017 alone.

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The initiative, Bamburi said, also spearheaded the manufacture of more than 100,000 stabilised soil bricks in western Kenya.

Bamburi assists homeowners in applying for building approvals and occupancy certificates from the county government but the customers bear the costs.

The company also offers technical support during construction to ensure the buildings are up to standard.

Kenya is among nine African countries that were earmarked by Bamburi’s parent firm Lafarge (now LafargeHolcim) for the development of low-cost housing across the continent.

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