‘Nigeria’s housing deficit can only be solved by the Federal Government and the private sector’ – minister says

Statistics have shown that Nigeria needs at least 17 million houses to fully satisfy it’s populations.

It is also a no-brainer that a lot of people think this problem can only be fixed by the Federal Government.

However, the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola SAN, differs.

According to

“If Government starts, and allows private sector to play a more active role, supply will improve, opportunities for ownership and access will expand, and then we can achieve some consistency of housing provision.

In this way, we can then be able to say that we are on our way to sustainable housing delivery”, he explained.

Fashola cited examples where houses had been delivered due to a joint effort from both the Federal Government and the private sector.

“In the latter part of my tenure of service as Governor of Lagos, between March 2014 and April 2015, the State Government was able to deliver 200 homes every month by mortgage to Lagosians , and had put in place a program of construction in about 20 sites across Lagos to sustain the monthly supply of 200 homes under the Lagos HOMS scheme.

200 homes a month may appear insufficient, but I do not recall any Government in Africa that made a commitment equal to that, not to talk of delivering on it. This is why I spoke of consistency. And this is why I spoke of the importance of private sector participation.

This observation is important because it leads to the question whether Government can truly provide a home for everybody and whether it is a legitimate expectation for everybody to expect to own a home provided by Government? It helps to define and manage expectation, performance and accountability in terms of what is possible to deliver and over what period”, he said.

What do you think?