ByJude Njoku

The Federal Housing Authority (FHA), the agency set up by te Federal Government 37 years ago, to provide affordable housing to millions of homeless Nigerians, has only built 37,000 housing units in the country. This translates to the construction of 1,000 units a year in a country where a staggering 16 million units would be required to solve the housing crisis being experienced by the people. The houses are scattered in 76 estates in various parts of the country.

FHA’s Executive Director (Estate Services) Engr. Bello Issa who disclosed this at a forum in Lagos last week, however said the agency plans to build 106,000 houses in the next four years. About 50,000 of those houses are currently at various stages of construction.

Engr. Bello said in its bid to improve the nation’s housing stock, FHA has embraced the public private partnership as a complimentary channel for housing delivery. The Authority has also mapped out other strategies that would guarantee sustainable mass housing delivery in the country.

These include direct development, public private partnership, public-public partnership, cooperative housing, sites and services and new towns development. Others include rental housing and regeneration.

Engr .Bello decried the dearth of finance and the cumbersome process in land acquisition. “Housing development is capital intensive; therefore, for effective delivery to be achieved, large capital injection into housing development is necessary. In Nigeria, absence of this large capital for mortgage fiancing coupled with high interest rates, short term mortgages and cumbersome requirements for accessing loans constitute constraints to effective housing delivery,” he said.