Minister seeks senates nod for N800b, vows to tackle housing deficit

The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Dangiwa, has explained the criteria for citing the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates in each state of the federation.

The Minister also spelt out the needs for the N500 billion on request enable him tackle housing deficit and payment of N300 billion liabilities inherited from the previous administration, adding that in collaboration with the ministry of Foreign Affairs they are sourcing for foreign donors to fund the one trillion needed to tackle national housing needs headlong.

Arc. Dangiwa, who revealed this when he met with the Senate Committee on Land, Housing and Urban Renewal at the National Assembly, Abuja, yesterday, added that despite sending letters to all the 36 states, with a reminder, only eight states that complied  were captured in the phase one of the project.

He further assured that when the National Social Housing Fund, NSHF, scales through, the ministry intends having 774,000 units, with each state having at least 100,000 houses in the 774 local government areas.

“We pleaded with the state governors to give us unencumbered, accessible and free land in order to build houses for their own citizens. Because I know that houses built in Bayelsa cannot be occupied by somebody from Rivers or any neighbouring states”.

 “Even last week we sent reminders to Imo, Port Harcourt, Lagos and Bayelsa State, through a former SA to the Senate president, who is close to some of these governors. We tried to reach them, but honestly land has been the problem”, he said.

He further added, “When we finished the procurement process and about to award these projects, we then brought out the locations of those who have responded. And categorized them into geopolitical zones, to ensure that we are fare to the whole country. In each zone we looked at the land that was provided, that is accessible and is not an unencumbered land”.

 “Because they will give you a site, but will not pay compensation. Only when contractor moves to sight that they will be harassed and denied access to the site. At Akwa Ibom, the contractor had to pay the compensation; after the Commissioner had told us that the compensation has been made. But by the time of grand breaking we discovered it was not paid for! And the money is just twenty-four million naira. So I advised the contractor to pay and get off the hook.

“With those criteria as our guide, there was an equitable spread without political leaning, Kano, for instance, is an NNPP state and they got one. Abia is a Labour Party state from the South East. Ebonyi is APC. And we have four PDP states: Delta, Akwa Ibom, Osun and Oyo States. These are the states that were able to give us land. Those states in the northern region don’t have land issues, they always give out accessible and unencumbered land to develop most of your estates.

“Enugu gave us land we didn’t use, as we are using it for the Renewed Hope City, because in each region we are taking one state for that purpose. In South South we are thinking of Port Harcourt, where we are building high rise block of flats, chalets and duplexes. In South West we are taking Lagos. In North Central it is either Nasarawa or Niger State.

“Wherever we finally decide must have land that is closer to the Federal Capital, so that FTC residents will benefit. In the North East we are taking Borno State, while in the North West we are taking either Kaduna or Kano; whichever that gives us the required land. In 30 states we are building Renewed Hope Estates that are going to be bungalows and very affordable. We don’t want a situation where we would build houses and it remains unsold”, he said.

On the issue of local government benefiting, he said, “If the National Social Housing Fund, NSHF, scales through, we intend to have 774 local government owned their estates. Each state should have at least 100,000 houses, making it 774,000 units. We have already done the design and we have cost it. It is still less than one trillion naira. ‘

“We are thinking that if you take twenty percent of our 200 million population, which is 20 million Nigerians. If twenty million Nigerians can contribute fifty thousand naira that will fetch us one trillion naira. In a year, if we can mandate Nigerians who can afford it to contribute fifty thousand naira to the NSHF, we can build 774,000 houses in each of the 774 local government for free to those who doesn’t have an income.  The following year we can upscale it.

“At same time we are also looking at the participation of international donors. We have written letters and we are getting good responses. I am collaborating with the ministry of foreign affairs, and they are trying to link us to these foreign donors who can lend this kind of money to do that in all local government areas.

“The key priority is not about APC as being alleged. Ours is to reduce the housing deficit in the country. That is why we are collaborating with the office of the National Population Commission. As we are quite aware, the housing deficit differs from region to region. In each of the six geopolitical zone we have different life culture.

“In the North West persons per house could be between ten to twelve persons per household. So whatever population you have their, even if you divide it by 12, that will give you an idea of how many houses you may need. In South South where they have lesser number of persons per households of an average of six to eight people per household.

“Whatever number of population you have, if you divide it by eight, then you could be able to know how many units has been counted. And how many units are they supposed to have. The different will give you the deficit. That is why we are collaborating with the National Census Commission. At the end of the exercise we know which region has which deficit. Which does have a deficit. Then the total count will give us the sum in the country.

“The Renewed Hope Estate’s fifty thousand is a combined efforts of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Housing Authority and Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, the Family Homes Fund and even the PPP arrangement. These are all the efforts in place to ensure that the total income achieves the targeted amount. Due to budget constraints that is all we could do. We intended doing 500 estates, but we are only able to do 250,000 in twelve states. With the budgetary allocation we are looking for, we will be able to cover the remaining 24 states.

“The 500 billion is not part of the liabilities. It is purely for the payment of the ongoing projects. It is different from the 300 billion naira debts that we inherited. We want the budget both the 300 billion naira liability and the 500 billion naira for the payment of ongoing projects.  We intend selling off the National Housing program we inherited from the previous administration at the stage we met them, so that Nigerians can buy them at a cheaper rate, complete and move in.