Experts in the built environment have said that if encouraged to grow, housing corporations could help to reduce the country’s homeownership problems.
They said that the housing corporations should be considered as critical part of the solutions especially for intervention in a formal rental housing tenure.
The Managing Director, Family Homes Fund, Mr Femi Adewole, stated that it had become crucial to give more attention to developing housing solutions targeted at up to 90 million Nigerians living on less than $1 per day as the population, equivalent to the whole of West Africa, was too large to ignore.
Adewole, who spoke at a national workshop of the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria, said it had become necessary for stakeholders to recognise that the cost of investing in housing that would be affordable to all sections of the population was much lower than the cost of not investing or half -hearted approaches.
He said, “Enabled housing corporations can provide off taker guarantees for large scale private developers while acquisitions can be financed by capital market issuances, with initial deficit grants where required.
“Reform is needed. We need to build institutions that provide a sustainable base for housing delivery. Renewed housing corporations can have a significant role to play here. A single-minded large scale housing programme possibly on the back of new satellite towns is required. Current approaches while well intended are not sufficient.”
The President and Chairman of Council of the Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria, Mohammed Baba-Adamu, stated that opportunities abound in the construction and housing sector but that homeownership still remained the priority and major need of the people.
He added, “What have we done with these opportunities? We talk about high demand for housing without corresponding supply yet we have houses developed in some of our major cities like Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt built over two years that are not sold. We talk about inadequate housing finance to build yet we have some idle funds in the system that are quietly kept and placed in fixed deposit and treasury bills generating selfish income to the pocket of some privileged few.
“We complain of high cost of building materials yet every policy put in place to encourage and sustain vibrant local building materials production is not supported with appropriate enabling environment to produce quality building materials. Why is our mortgage market crawling when we have a vibrant platform that can create unhindered access to affordable mortgage as well as exit point for developers who invested in housing?”
Baba-Adamu said it had become necessary for stakeholders to holistically tackle the country’s housing problems, adding that as an association, the AHCN was ready to explore and pursue all viable options that would assist it in fulfilling the objective of providing shelter for the people.
He, however, lamented the usurpation of the statutory responsibilities of housing agency in housing construction and development for the state by the ministries of housing, describing it as an unnecessary duplication of duty which would cause distraction, needless rivalry, unfair competition and sheer wastages and repetition of efforts and resources.
He said, “The housing ministry should strictly reduce its activities to policy formulation and monitor her statutory parastatals to ensure policy compliance and accomplishment. In summary, the ministry of housing in the states should concentrate on providing the enabling environment and supervision for the housing agency to fulfill its statutory mandates.
“There is no doubt that state housing agencies have potential to meet the housing needs of the people but this cannot be achieved without the support of the state governments. It is pertinent that state governments should engage their state housing agency as the executor in all their housing programmes and projects to make those corporations more relevant to their statutory responsibilities. There is no doubt that this measure will go a long way in ensuring housing availability and affordability in the states.”
The President, Real Estate Developers Association, Mr Ugochukwu Chime, said if property handled, housing could become a veritable tool for employment generation, inclusive economic growth and fulcrum to reversing economic downturn in most climes.
The Director General, Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute, Prof Danladi Matawal,said that with the country’s high deficit figure, the housing sector had a great role to play.
“The ability to provide shelter for the people at a cheaper rate would have solved over 60 per cent of the need of man. At this point when imported building materials are becoming very expensive and considering the fact that the availability of fund continues to dwindle, the solution is the alternative, locally sourced building materials which are in abundance in Nigeria,” he said.
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