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FG to sink N40b into housing
The Federal Government (FG) hopes to commit the sum of N40bn for the provision of affordable housing for all, President Muhammadu Buhari has assured.
The President gave this assurance on Wednesday at the 35th annual general meeting and international symposium of Shelter Afrique.
According to Buhari who was represented by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Muhammed Bello, Nigeria requires a minimum of additional one million housing units yearly to reduce its 17 million housing deficit in order to avert a housing crisis by 2020.
To this end, the Federal Government, he stressed, is willing to invest about N40 billion in the 2016 Capital Budget to implement a comprehensive programme for housing development in the country.
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“Nigeria with a population of about 170 million people and an annual population growth rate of 3.5% requires a minimum of additional one (1) million housing units per annum to reduce the much acclaimed national deficit of about 17 million housing units in order to avert a housing crisis by the year 2020.
“The problem of housing the urban poor is not entirely new and I believe that different efforts must have been deployed in the past to confront it. But, even today, the problem is still with us. Such reality challenges us to re-assess our methodologies and evolve fresh strategies to meet the exigencies of these times.”
The initiative, he said, would also harness all forward and backward linkages offered by each housing project for rejuvenation of sustainable development in Nigeria.
In his address, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola lamented that the series of housing initiatives embarked on by Nigeria over the years had not been pursued with consistency or any measure of sustainability.
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