by Adim Esohe
“From the inception of government’s initiative in organised housing finance system to date, only meager sum have so far been injected into the system. This accounts for less than 0.5 per cent of the GDP compared to other climes, like the United Kingdom and South Africa. This is due to the inability of financial systems to provide low cost finance that meets the need of low and medium income earners,”
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, made this disclosure at the 32nd Annual Conference and General Meeting of the African Union for Housing Finance (AUHF) in Abuja, represented by the Director, Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the ministry, Eucharia Alozie, yesterday.
Fashola stated that creating thousands of affordable houses yearly and generating employment and commercial activities is a provision which government recognizes as what will create leverage and guarantees which are critical to attracting private sector funds to the industry.
The minister urged the AUHF to support innovative housing finance in Nigeria, regretting that years of inadequate investment and poor maintenance culture have left the country with a huge housing deficit, thereby slowing development and economic growth.
The Minister went further to blame lack of housing finance in public and corporate institutions, lack of access to land, double digit housing loans, high cost of building materials, inflation and population explosion as part of the reasons many Nigerians do not own houses.
Picture credit: guardian.ng