By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Permanent Secretary Ministry Of Works and Housing,Mohammed Bukar, said that , land acquisition poses a major hindrance to effective housing delivery in Nigeria and government is providing ways to bridges in the challenges.
Bukar made the disclosure yesterday at the 8th meeting of the National Council on Housing,the event which began on, Monday 4th November, 2019 is slated to last till Friday 8th November, 2019.
Delivering his open remarks, the permanent secretary represented by Director Planning,Research and Statistics Dr. Famous Eseduwa explained that, the theme of this year’s Council Meeting
“Housing Development and Consumer Credit as strategies for National Prosperity”was carefully chosen in recognition of govemment’s new initiative to generate more jobs and create wealth for Nigerians through the mass construction of affordable housing units.
He pointed out that”housing deficits exist in almost all the countries of the world, either in the form of shortages in supply or affordability gaps.
He reiterated that the on-going National Housing Programme across the Federation was an initiative specifically designed to encourage local manufacturers professionals, artisans and craftsmen towards enhancing employment and wealth creation.
“we all are aware that,housing is one of the fundamental human needs and a veritable indicator of standard of living in every society but there are challenges of access to credit encountered by the low and medium income segments of our society in the pursuit of home ownership”.
Consequently,he highlighted various factors responsible for preventing effective housing development, some of which include” lack of secure access to land, high cost of construction, limited access to finance bureaucratic procedures, high cost of land registration and titling,uncoordinated policies and implementation at both Federal and State
levels, ownership rights under the Land Use Act, lack of critical infrastructure, affordability gap, and inefficient development control, among other.
According to him”in order to comprehensively address these challenges of housing development for sustainable economic growth, there is the need to develop a holistic strategy that will involve all tiers of government and the private sector.
While explaining,the fact that the private sector has displayed flexibility and potentials in housing development as it is prevalent, internationally.
He also assured that the federal government would continue to work towards fine tuning its policies and programmes towards creating an enabling environment for greater participation of subnational governments and the private sector in housing development.
Adding that,the present administration is mindful of the all the processes that would ensure proper harmonization of the various procedures and instruments of land acquisition,transfer across the country are currently being addressed.
Meanwhile,our agencies are also developing initiatives to incorporate micro-enterprises, such as agro-allied ventures into the housing scheme with a view to generating more employment opportunities thereby creating wealth for beneficiaries to repay their loans at ease.
“The Ministry through its agencies is working tirelessly in collaboration with the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Cooperative Societies as well as the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) towards the development and delivery of affordable housing to the low-income workers in the formal sector. “
Earlier, in his welcome remarks Dr. Director Planning,Research and Statistics Dr. Famous Eseduwa,pointed out that National Council of Housing was the highest policy owners in housing sector and which meet one in year, to signal,looked at memorandum submitted by stakeholders.
“We are pathfinders clearing roads for the council meeting to brainstorm and create an enable environment for the highest level of commitment as stakeholders in the housing sector”he said .
In attendance were Directors from the Ministry, Heads of Government Agencies, Private developers and Delegates from the States of the Federation, professional bodies in the built industry and the academia.
