By Yinka Kolawole
Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has called on the federal government to deplore resources at its disposal to redevelop the country’s mortgage scheme to become more effective in making housing more accessible to Nigerians.

Fashola made the call recently, when the Minister of Housing, Lands and Urban Development, Chief Ndueze Essien, visited him at the State House, in Lagos. He counselled that there is the need to formulate policies that will encourage private sector active participation in housing development, which should embrace the development of a more vibrant mortgage system.

“We are thinking of a mortgage scheme that makes it easier for people to come in and go out; a mortgage scheme that the interest rate is not excruciating and punishing; a mortgage scheme that has a decent tenor of at least 15 years,” he said.
The governor noted that only federal agencies such as the housing ministry has the capacity to achieve this, and therefore urged the housing minister to help facilitate a review of the functions of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and other mortgage programmes in a way that a securable percentage of the idle funds in the Pension Scheme can be dedicated to housing development.

He urged the minister to find and develop an enduring model for housing development in the country, adding that there is the need to create a sustainable model on which succeeding administrations can build on.

Fashola told the minister that in Lagos the present administration is building houses but its challenge lies in creating a model that would work for Nigerians. He added that every model must be one which allows a fresh Nigerian graduate who has a steady job to own a home. “Once that is done, the private sector will respond and build homes because they know they can sell them. What is needed is a very reliable collection system that also enforces breaches of covenant,” he stated.

The Lagos state governor also advised that the operators of the real sector be allowed to provide houses, while the federal and states stand back and use policies and authority to make the partnership work.

“No matter how many houses the ministry builds, the building capacity will reside in the private sector. That is the real economy that can build houses and help us gradually address the deficit of housing which the country faces,” he said.

Speaking during the visit, the housing minister reiterated the that the federal government has concluded plans to construct 54,500 houses in the 109 Senatorial districts in the country, that is 500 units per district, during the remaining period of the current administration.

Essien said that due to the strategic importance of to Nigeria and the tremendous urban renewal efforts of the present Lagos state government, the project might take off in the state.