Independent Patriots for Change parliamentarian Armas Amukoto says the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development's reduced N$1.9-billion budget will fail miserably to address Namibia's housing backlog.

Amukoto said this during his contribution to the budget in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

"Last year the ministry received a budget of N$2.7 billion for the 2025/26 financial year, but it still failed to provide housing," he said.

"Now this current financial year, you have reduced it to N$1.9 billion. How do you expect such a low budget to address the housing crisis?"

He said a budget can only be regarded as genuine based on progress.

Amukoto said during the last financial year, only 58 housing units were built in Windhoek through the mass housing programme, 24 at Opuwo, while 112 housing units were delivered by the National Housing Enterprise (NHE) across the country.

He said it is estimated that the housing backlog is increasing, with about 12 000 shacks erected every year.

He also raised concerns about the NHE only managing to build 133 housing units compared to the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia's 583 in a year, thereby questioning state-owned entities' performance.