By YINKA KOLAWOLE

The federal government needs the support of the private sector in order to successfully fund housing delivery in the country. Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ms Ama Pepple, said this recently in Abuja, in a seminar paper presented on “How to reach the Millennium Development Goals for Housing in Nigeria and How to Encourage the Private Sector’’.

Pepple who was represented by Mrs Morenike Babalola, Deputy Director, Town Planning in the ministry, said every opportunity must be explored to reduce housing deficit in the country through collaborative effort.

“More efforts should be geared towards mobilisation of bilateral and multilateral funds in form of grants and interest-free loans for housing development. The issue of sovereign guarantee should be addressed as this is a requirement to attract foreign investors to the sector,” she stated.

In addition, the minister said the ministry would ensure the usage of alternative building technologies that will ensure faster and cheaper production of houses, such as the Industrial Building System. She said government would assist the private sector to purchase building materials directly from manufactures to reduce cost of construction.

The minister also promised that preventive measures would be taken to check the growth of slums through proper planning, adding that funding of slum upgrading should be continuous and predictable at all levels.