Fashola: FG Building 2,736 New Housing Units in 33 States

• Plans speedy delivery of homes through co-operative societies

Chineme Okafor and Nnenna Akuma in Abuja

The Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, thursday disclosed that 2,736 fresh units of houses were being built by the federal government in 33 states, in a pilot phase to test-run the affordability and acceptability of its national housing programme.

Fashola also stated that the government would after its test-run of the programme, plan to deliver more housing units to Nigerians through co-operative societies.

He said the idea was to steadily build and plug the country’s housing deficit which is often put at about 17 million.
He stated these at the sixth edition of the National Council on Land, Housing and Urban Development, in Abuja, where he explained that the 33 states benefitting from the pilot phase of housing programme were the ones that provided the ministry land with legally backed documentation.

He stated that within the project schedule, 54,680 jobs had been created while 653 contractors were engaged to build the units. Although, he did not disclose how much the government had expended on the projects.

“At the time of the council meeting in August 2016, I reported that we were finalising designs to accommodate our cultural, climactic and other diversified, and that when the designs were completed we would commence construction to pilot the designs and test them for affordability and acceptability.

“I am pleased to report that construction has started in 33 states where land has been made available. This is in fulfillment of another commitment made at last year’s council by at least 90 per cent. This must give a lot of hope to our people that this government will do what it says, and I want to thank all the states who gave us land,” said Fashola.

He further stated: “653 contractors were engaged in the pilot scheme to deliver 2,736 units. A total of 54,680 people were employed in the process.”

The minister explained that the government had in its adopted approach for the housing programme, repositioned relevant agencies in the sector to effectively undertake their respective responsibilities.

He said: “While our national housing programme, is the first of its type on a national scale in many decades that seeks to respond to the deficit, government agencies such as the Federal Mortgage Bank, Federal Housing Authority are being repositioned to play their role more effectively to address the housing problem.

“For example, the Federal Housing Authority has been mandated by the ministry to reposition herself to be one of our champions of housing delivery based on her previous track record. Similarly, the Federal Mortgage Bank continues to deepen participation in the National Housing Fund which forms a reliable pool of funding from which she lends money to contributors by way of mortgage loans to acquire houses.

“In addition, the bank has granted loans to estate developers to build houses; and from their recent report to me, they currently have 3,823 housing units available for sale in various states of the federation,” Fashola added.
He said to accelerate government’s delivery of housing units to Nigerians to cut down the country’s housing deficit, an initiative to engage co-operative societies in the programme would be worked out for adoption.

According to him, “The next level of intervention which the ministry is developing is the use of co-operatives. Our experience has shown that very sizable parts of our population who are productive and self-employed have been excluded from formal processes that regulate access to funding, land or housing.

“However, these large number of people operate successfully by themselves, in groups which they form as co-operatives to protect their common interests and pursue their developmental objectives. Co-operatives have been very prolific and successful in sectors like agriculture and market organisations where the vulnerability of an individual is transformed into the strength of a group.”

“Our government sees no reason why the successes of co-operatives in these sectors cannot be utilised to facilitate housing delivery, access and inclusion. We are determined to place the might of government at the disposal of groups who can form themselves into co-operatives, as enabling capacity to acquire the land, take loans, build for themselves and operate a rent to own policy for those who cannot pay full ownership cost at start.

“When our work on the review of the existing laws, and the processes for eligibility are completed, we will undertake a national launch and enlightenment program to kick the active use of co-operatives in housing delivery. I have chosen to speak about this plan at this meeting because the success of this initiative will depend on what is done at state level; and many, if not all, states are represented here,” the minister added.