Only 15 of 61 Old Muharraq Housing Cases Take BD40,000 Plot Option

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Twenty-one years after the earliest filings, 811 housing applications from Muharraq’s Third Constituency are still pending, including 65 dating back to 2004 and earlier, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning has said in a written reply to Parliament.

Responding to a question from MP Mohammed Al Olaiwi, the ministry said the outstanding requests date from 2002 to 2025 and are largely for housing units. It put the backlog at 746 unit applications, alongside 17 requests for housing plots and 48 for ownership flats.

The oldest applications still awaiting allocation are all for housing units. The ministry said there are 18 outstanding applications from 2002, 17 from 2003 and 30 from 2004. It added that later years make up most of the queue, with unit applications in the constituency including 45 from 2011, 48 from 2012, 43 from 2013 and 58 from 2014. Requests for plots first appear in 2013, while applications for ownership flats start appearing in 2015.

On the alternative option offered to applicants with files from 2004 and earlier, the ministry said 61 people in the constituency asked to take a housing plot with BD40,000 in financing. It said 15 have already benefited, and that the remaining cases under this option will be allocated in batches as projects become ready across the governorates.

For applicants whose files date from 2005 onwards, the ministry said its plans focus on offering more housing options and doing more work with the private sector under the Government Programme 2023–2026, with the aim of giving people faster ways to secure housing.

It pointed to the expanded ‘Tas’heel+’ financing option and to ‘Tumooh’. The ministry said Tumooh allows eligible beneficiaries of Tas’heel and Tas’heel+, as well as some people who previously used purchase financing to buy an ownership flat, to access an extra BD20,000 in state-backed support after ten years from the flat’s purchase date. It said the extra amount, together with the proceeds from selling the flat, is intended to help beneficiaries move to a bigger property.

In Madinat Salman, the ministry said it has signed contracts for three further housing projects with several developers, providing 137 units for financing beneficiaries. It added that it is preparing to tender a project to build more than 3,000 units in Madinat Khalifa, noting that four memoranda of understanding were signed in April and that work is due to begin in the next phase.

In the Southern Governorate, it added, a Madinat Khalifa housing project began at the start of this year to provide 372 units.