New Telegraph

FG to spend N317.3bn on 25,515 new houses

The Federal Government is planning to utilise existing institutions to build 25,515 affordable homes across the country in the next 12 months at the estimated cost of N317.3 billion.

 

This was contained in the second track of Mass Housing Strategy of the federal authority’s Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP) 2020,.

 

“The first track aimed at easing bottlenecks in the delivery of social housing while the second track will deliver affordable homes through direct government interventions in house construction,” the NESP document read. The document detailed government’s Mass Housing Strategy for the creation of 1.8 million jobs starting with the construction of 300,000 homes in the next 12 months.

 

The existing institutions for the implementation of the 25,515 affordable housing units comprise the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Federal Mortgage Bank  of Nigeria and Federal Housing Authority.

 

As its guiding principle the document read that government was trying to optimise the job creation potential of the housing sector to deliver affordable housing across the country.

 

To make the project a reality, according to the NESP document, the Federal Government will work with states to identify land for housing construction. The project elements target 100 per cent local input for construction by engaging the housing industry supply chain in its entirety including mortgage banks, developers, builders and artisans.

 

The breakdowns under second track stated: “Between them, the Federal Housing Authority, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and the Public Building and Housing Development Programme will support the creation of construction and associated jobs over the next 12 months. “This will involve building 10,840 units of low, medium and high income units across the six geopolitical zones.”

 

Under the Public Building and Housing Development Programme, it stated further that additional 12,008 houses would be built, adding that a programme of extensive rehabilitation and restoration of public buildings will be implemented all over the country.

 

Besides, the NESP stated that FMBN would also provide  construction financing, for up to 2,667 housing units per year with arrangements for off-take being organised through a Cooperative Housing Development Loan Scheme and a National Affordable Workers’ Housing Scheme. An Executive Order to implement the National Public Buildings Maintenance Policy, the document showed would be issued to facilitate the survey and maintenance work on public buildings.

 

The document emphasised that the implementing agencies would engage with off-takers in the private and public sector through employee cooperatives.

 

“It will ensure the use of local content in construction, rehabilitation and maintenance work. Is-suance of Executive Order on the implementation of the National Public Buildings Maintenance Policy,” the document read. In the first track in addition to the jobs created in the process of increasing the national housing stock, the document said the strategy would also motivate increased domestic production of building materials.

 

“Features of the strategy include developing standardised home design to streamline production methods and costs, engagement with states governments to provide suitable land banks and giving construction contracts with guaranteed off-take to a mix of established developers and consortiums of young professionals in the building sector (architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, accountants, etc.) as small and medium scale contractors,” it read.

 

These groups, the NESP document said, would in turn generate the associated artisanal jobs.

 

In addition, it said the construction sites would function like factories for the light manufacture of inputs for house construction, such as locks, keys, nails, doors, window frames, cement bricks and paint plants to be used on location. In order to create indirect jobs and save on costs, the document said this was intended that all the materials to be used in the houses will be produced in Nigeria.

 

It read: “Financing will be arranged through the designation of a homes’ warehousing agent, who will purchase the completed homes from the developer teams and from whom individual buyers will eventually purchase homes.”

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