Agencies seek seed money from govt for housing construction Inadequate finance, politics, escalating cost of building materials and high infrastructural development cost among others have been adduced as major reasons for low performance of housing corporations in the country.
Speaking with New Telegraph, Executive Secretary of the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN), Mr. Toye Eniola, said that non-availability of primary mortgage institutions (PMI) to assist some state housing corporations in disposing housing units, and lack of government support in terms of infrastructural facility provision in most of the estates were major challenges of the real estate sector in Nigeria.
These factors, he noted, often increased the cost of completed housing units.
According to him, inadequate moral support in terms of loans and politicking with such funds usually put corporations in trouble while servicing the loans.
He added that lack of political will, which is rooted in lack of finance, was a major challenge of housing delivery by the corporations.
To help in reducing the nation’s acute housing shortage and improve social distancing among citizens for healthy living, Eniola said that AHCN needed N18 billion seed fund from the government towards this direction.
According to them, such funds will assist housing corporations to take off project execution.
On steps taken to draw attention of the government to housing corporations’ challenges, the executive secretary said the eggheads of the agencies had been reorientating state governors to see housing as a social responsibility, seeking their support to embark on social and rental housing to take care of vulnerable low-income groups and the poor.
AHCN is making its demand even when the combined budget for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing is N315.5billion.
According to experts, Nigeria will require over N59 trillion to solve its housing deficit, which is estimated at over 17million.
Eniola added that inadequate funding of research efforts into the use of local building materials to ascertain its suitability for peculiarity of the state and withdrawal of state governments from the National Housing Fund contributions had put housing corporations at a disadvantage in accessing Estate Development Loans from the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN).
Eniola said that establishment of politically motivated parallel housing organisation in the same state, thereby duplicating the responsibility of the state housing corporations, was inimical to their success.
“The problems are peculiar to all housing delivery agencies,” he said, adding that most housing corporations have suffered political interference with activities of the agencies and this has grossly affected on-going projects.
According to him, the agencies also suffered lack of total independence to execute projects professionally andusurpation of statutory responsibility of housing corporations in housing construction and development for the state by the ministry who are supposed to formulate policy and monitor its parastatals to ensure policy compliance and accomplishment.
Meanwhile, stakeholders in the real estate sector are still awaiting the Central Bank of Nigeria to declare concrete financial intervention for housing just the way it has done in other sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing industries.
However, National Coordinator, Housing Development Advocacy Network, Mr Festus Adebayo, had called on the Federal Government to restructure the national housing delivery architecture by ensuring that roles and responsibilities are assigned, and adhered to by stakeholders.
Adebayo also enjoined the Federal Government to urgently recapitalise the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) to enable mortgages to be created.
He asked the government to commence a process of working with professional bodies and organisations to ensure a high level of professionalism and diligence in their operations and processes.
Apart from doing something differently, the affordable housing advocate said the government must involve the private sector in decisions for which their resources of time, finance and goodwill will be expended.
He also tasked the government to work on removing the bottlenecks in the transaction dynamics by getting the land administrators of 36 states and FCT of the federation.
Source: Newtelegraphng
