Baghdad The former Minister of Construction and Housing, Bankan Rikani, revealed the actual need for housing units in Iraq annually.

Rikani said, in a statement to the National Iraqi News Agency (NINA), that “the last census of housing units conducted by the Ministry of Planning was in the year 2009, after which there are no official government statistics.”

He explained, “The numbering system in the municipal departments in the governorates does not exist to carry out the enumeration operations, and these two bodies responsible for carrying out the enumeration, the Central Bureau of Statistics and the municipal departments, do not have an enumeration system.”

He added, “The previous government prepared a new contract for the enumeration system, which was not implemented at the time. We hope that it will be implemented in the future. It requires a new unified numbering of all housing units in all governorates of Iraq,” noting that “the current rate of housing units in Iraq and the actual need for the present time is not less than 3.5 million housing units.”

He continued, “The average Iraqi family enumeration is 5 members, and we have an annual increase of 1,250 million newborns, therefore these people need at least 250-300 thousand housing units annually.

Source: National Iraqi News Agency