By OLASUNKANMI AKONI

LAGOS—Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State yesterday assured residents that his administration would continue to provide affordable housing for them in spite of high cost of building materials in the country.

Fashola gave the assurance at the fourth draw for the allocation of homes to residents under the state‘s Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme, Lagos HOMS.

76 beneficiaries across different estates emerged at the draw.

Speaking on the insinuations that that homes under the state‘s mortgage scheme were not low-cost, Fashola described the statements as “unfair”, saying the claims were aimed at discrediting the good intentions of the state government.

“Some people have criticised us that homes under our mortgage scheme are not low-cost, but these people cannot point to one place where our government promised to build low cost houses. What we promised was affordable housing, and so people should not accuse us of not doing what we did not promise. As I said and I have always reiterated from when I was a candidate in 2007, my commitment to the people of Lagos was an affordable housing and that is what we are delivering.”

“The homes are affordable because there are one, two, three bedrooms designed to fit different income brackets; they are affordable because residents can easily access them and can pay for them conveniently” he said.

According to him, the state‘s mortgage scheme was already a success story as 200 homes in estates across the states, were allocated monthly to successful applicants.

Fashola urged allotees to help strengthen the scheme by fulfilling their obligations of the mortgage, saying “this scheme has been designed to outlive me and continue for a long time. To achieve that, we have created a board to ensure the processing of applications and ensure delivery of homes to successful applicants. I don’t have a hand it. It is not about me. ”

The estates, in which homes were allocated include: Sir Michael Otedola Estate, Epe; Olaitan Mustapha Estate, Ijaiye; Adetoun Mustapha Estate; Ijaiye; Shogunro Estate, Ogba and Choice Estate; Lekki.