By CHARLES KUMOLU

…As ministry creates 76,000 jobs
AFTER food, housing is noted as the second most important human need. Under President Goodluck Jonathan administration’s Transformation Agenda and Vision 20:2020, the provision of accessible and affordable housing is one of the strategic national imperatives for guaranteeing the well-being and productivity of the citizenry.

As it were, this strategic mandate is supervised by the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms. Ama Pepple who restating this recently at a forum. According to her, “the housing sector has the capacity to reduce crime rates, insurrection, militancy, terrorism and substantially address wealth distribution and security problems, while our cities are centres of economic growth and centres for commerce and wealth creation, and for the promotion of healthy living environments.”

This explains why the ministry under her supervision, has not left any stone unturned in its efforts at meeting up with its mandate. It was gathered that one of her administration’s most crucial successes, is the reviewing and updating of both the national housing policy and the national urban development policy.

Instructively, the major aim of this, according to the Minister is “ensuring that all Nigerians own or have access to decent, safe and sanitary housing in healthy environments with infrastructural services at affordable cost, with secure tenure and, to promote a dynamic system of urban settlements, which fosters sustainable economic growth, promotes efficient urban & regional planning and development.’’

She further clarified that a ministerial team for housing delivery in Nigeria had been inaugurated to propose modalities for implementation of the reviewed policies, noting that the benefits from the project include; the delivery of 1,873 housing units through the agencies of the Federal Housing Authority, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, the Public Private Partnership, PPP Initiative and directly through the Ministry.

In addition, she said that no fewer than 24,188 units were on-going. ‘’The PPP unit of the Ministry alone has engaged 89 developers to build 17,267 houses on a total expanse of 889 hectares! There are also housing schemes in Kuje, Abuja and Asaba, Delta state,’’ she added.

Challenges: A key challenging area of Pepple’s mandate is in the arena of social housing. Though efforts in this critical turf were linked to a collaboration with Aso Savings & Loans and the FMBN to develop 144 mixed housing units at Lugbe, Abuja, as well as 1,000 units under another partnership with a private developer, more needs to be done here.

Notwithstanding, checks revealed that there are definitive progress in other areas, such as the partnership under the PPP Initiative with Cyrus; Projects to build unity villages in each of the six geo-political zones; 109 units by Royal Sanderton awaiting commissioning in Lagos State; the conversion of 12,500 analogue and cadastral maps to the digital equivalent; the issuance of 1,291 certificates of occupancy in respect of federal government lands; the agreement of the FCT ministry to issue C-of-Os to about 5,000 beneficiaries of the FHA Gwarimpa housing scheme; the establishing of 15 fully serviced residential plots per site in 13 states of the 6 geopolitical zones of the Federation and the FCT;

Within the Mortgage Finance sector, reported developments include the opening of a loan window by the FMBN using co-operative structures to expand mortgage financing to the non-salaried informal sector; the development of a joint working program with the Cities Alliance (World Bank Group) to undertake a comprehensive survey on housing that will assess and identify data gaps in the sector.