São Tomé and Príncipe government delivers 60 apartments built by China

The government of São Tomé and Príncipe delivered 60 apartments built by China to future buyers, ensuring the completion of the process “smoothly” and “without complaints”.

The apartments are part of 200 homes the Chinese government promised to complete in all districts of São Tomé and on the island of Príncipe as part of bilateral cooperation.

“Now, the whole organization and preparation of the [São Tomé] government, together with the government of the People’s Republic of China, follows for the completion of this first phase of the 200 apartments, of which 60 were built, and another 140 are planned for the different districts,” explained Osvaldo Abreu, the Minister of Infrastructure.

“We found that the process was completed smoothly, and there were no complaints after completion. We managed to clarify and filter all the controversial cases that occurred at the beginning of this same process and with this act to clarify and refute all the comments and malice we heard about this process,” added Osvaldo Abreu.

Beneficiaries underwent several selection phases, including assessing their financial capacity and excluding people who already owned their own homes. The final selected were chosen from more than 200 competitors through a random process.

“The apartments are valued at €35,000 (US$33,500), the T3, and €25,000, the T2. That is the agreed and approved amount, and the beneficiaries have this information,” explained the Minister of Infrastructure.

However, most of the beneficiaries considered that the cost of the apartments was high given the size and structure, so they appealed to the government to review the price, which the Minister of Infrastructure denied.

The minister justified the handing over the keys to the apartments on the last day of the electoral campaign for the elections in the country on Sunday.

“We are making the delivery to avoid gossip […] among them those who mentioned that the houses will never be delivered to the people who participated in the process, we only put on a show for the elections and that after the elections they will be assigned to other people who did not participate in the process.

“So we made a point of distributing and delivering the homes before the elections so that it is clear that those who went through the whole process, and are the beneficiaries drawn, are the owners of the houses,” justified the minister.

With information from CL Brief