BREAKING NEWS, Business
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The Nigerian government is to do a comprehensive geographical survey of its land resources for better economic development
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Jul 18, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE federal government is planning to undertake a comprehensive geographical survey of Nigeria’s land resources to determine their value and components for future economic development plans. Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, said the survey would enable the federal government to determine who it should build houses for, where it should build the houses and for what purposes the houses would be built.
The minister disclosed this in the final communiqué issued after a two-day session by experts who deliberated on affordable housing in Abuja. According to him, the government will through the survey also create a Geographical Information System, GIS, on Nigeria’s land resources. He said with the GIS data, builders would be able to access and analyse areas of interests for building projects in the country.
He noted that the national housing survey which his ministry would champion would be done with critical stakeholders such as the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria, REDAN. He read out other critical recommendations of the two-day session to bridge Nigeria’s housing deficits.
According to him, stakeholders agreed that governments at both federal and states levels should reduce the cumbersome process of land acquisition and land titling with a view to ease housing construction. He also said there was an agreement at the sessions that local solutions to mortgage financing through generational mortgage financing where tenor could be extended beyond the original mortgagee for continuity could be adopted by Nigeria to bring more people into the housing mortgage.
The minister added that the need to maintain a single digit interest rate in mortgage loan and perhaps subsidy for the low income earners was also recommended. He stated the need to recapitalise the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and enforce the National Housing Fund, NHF, contribution as enshrined in the enabling Act.
On the possibility of having pension funds come into the housing sector, Fashola said the conference asked that Pension Commission, PenCom, be encouraged to invest a sizeable part of the pension funds, dormant assets of banks and unclaimed dividends in primary mortgage products.
The minister noted that the federal government would strengthen the mortgage policy for Nigerians to access affordable housing, reduce corruption and encourage productivity in the sector. He stressed the need for stronger mortgage policy, in line with the change promised by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to pursue infrastructure development and specifically address the housing needs of Nigerians.
Fashola said the enthronement of best practice would help to reduce corruption, restore investors’ confidence in the housing sector and create an atmosphere of transparency and dependability. “I think that mortgage is the best practice and the way to go to reduce corruption and to encourage productivity. I suggest that our houses must be tied to our income, which must be tied to our jobs and I think it is the way to create credit that our housing sector desperately needs.
“I do not think that we can seriously talk about transparency, if a large number of our people pay a two-year advance housing rent when they receive their arrears monthly. Where will the money come from? I am sure there must be other ways in which we must create credit because economies where people get paid at the end of the week and able to pay their rent at the end of the week; or are paid at the end of the month and are able to pay their rent at the end of the month, allow for a much more beneficial quality of life.”
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