Abuja – The Federal Government says it is evolving new methodologies and fresh strategies to meet housing exigencies in the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari stated this at the official opening of the 35th Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Symposium of Shelter Afrique in Abuja.
According to him, one of the key trusts of the new National Housing Development Programme is direct housing supply as a strategic intervention measure to ameliorate growing deficits and most urgent cases of housing shortages in urban areas across all geopolitical zones.
Buhari, represented by the FCT Minister, Mr Muhammad Bello, noted that the programme also included harnessing all forward and backward development linkages offered by each housing project for the rejuvenation of sustainable development in Nigeria.
He said that it would guarantee access by the middle and low income earners to the housing units through targeted mortgage and off-take arrangements.
According to the president, it also includes continuous prosecution of an overall housing policy stance which recognizes government as active facilitator of private sector-driven housing sector.
He added that that programme would equally promote vibrant reforms in land administration, urban planning, renewal, housing finance and mortgage market.
“The problem of housing the urban poor is not entirely new and I believe that different efforts must have been deployed in the past to confront it.
“Such reality, challenges us to re-assess our methodologies and evolve strategies to meet the exigencies of these times.
Buhari described housing as a veritable catalyst of production and development by virtue of its forward and backward linkages to land, construction materials, labour as well as commodity and financial markets.
He charged all governments and various agents of positive development in Africa to give optimum and sustained attention to the sector for immense benefit.
He noted that due to the catalytic development potential of the sector, the Nigerian government had earmarked about N40 billion in the 2016 capital budget to implement a comprehensive programme for housing development.
“Nigeria, with a population of about 170 million people, and an annual population growth rate of 3.5 per cent, requires a minimum of additional one million housing unit per annum.
“This will reduce the much acclaimed deficit of about 17 million housing units in order to avert a housing crisis by the year 2020.
The president, however, commended the African ministers and national delegates at the meeting for their relentless effort at addressing urbanization challenges as well as advancing the Urban Agenda in Africa.
Commending the management of Shelter Afrique for delivering affordable housing and real estate development across Africa, Buhari implored it to remain focused as government strives to achieve unfettered access to adequate majority of African people.
He noted that the African region was experiencing the world’s highest rate of urban expansion and facing myriads of problems.
He said that the United Nations projections indicated that the continent would be 50 per cent urban in 2035, adding that it would rise further to 60 per cent by 2050, if the present growth trend continued.
“This also means that we will continue to see rapid changes in our towns and cities – more poverty, increased homelessness, urban sprawl, more slums among others.
“Practically, all urban centres across the African continent have different grades of slums which typify the home for the low income group and the poor.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Shelter Afrique is a Pan-African development finance institution established in 1982 by African governments and is exclusively dedicated to support housing finance in Africa.
The four-day AGM and Symposium has its theme as “Housing Africa’s Low Income Urban Population’’. (NAN)