Fashola invites buyers through online sale for transparency
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola has invited members of the public to buy 5,000 houses being built across 34 states in the National Housing Programme (NHP) to close the housing gap faced by millions of Nigerians.
He launched at the weekend the portal https://nhp.worksandhousing.gov.ng through which anyone can apply online to buy 5,000 plus units which range from one, two to three bedroom bungalows and blocks of flats in any location of their choice.
The houses are in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), except Lagos which is yet to provide land and Rivers which will join phase 3 of the project.
The launch came three days after the House of Representatives alleged that the Works and Housing Ministry built about 4,000 housing units but left them unsold and unoccupied.
The House unanimously adopted at the plenary on November 9 a motion tabled by Mansur Soro which urged the ministry, headed by Fashola, to “earnestly begin the process of disposing the completed houses to most deserving Nigerians.”
The motion added: “The House notes that since 2015, Nigeria has been contending with over 15 million housing deficit, which requires about 150,000 houses to be built yearly to bridge the gap.
“The National Housing Programme (Phase I) was launched in January 2016, with the construction of 2,500 units of houses in the 36 states and the Phase II of the programme was launched in 2018.
“The House is aware that nearly 4,000 houses have been completed and have remained unoccupied and if not disposed of to interested and deserving Nigerians, they may begin to wear out, a development that will not address the Housing deficits in Nigeria.”
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Ensuring credibility
Fashola explained at the launch of the portal in Abuja that selling the houses online would bring credibility to the exercise and reduce human intervention as well as give all categories of buyers a level playing field.
“We converge here just to introduce a portal on which the National Housing Programme pilot will be offered for sale to the public.
“What that means is that we will not be selling printed forms, the forms are online and this allows for more openness, limits human intervention and any disposition to any underhand practice,” he said.
“It is just to make the system more accountable and people seeing credibility if they win and if they are not successful they will equally know that the system has at least given them a fair chance.”
The audience comprised prominent stakeholders and media executives including Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) President, Mustapha Isah.
Fashola described the portal as “the end game of our economic objective,” saying the project has served many purposes, the first of which was to test what sort of houses Nigerians would like to live in so as to make policies to guide agencies, parastatals and stakeholders, to build what is acceptable to the market.
He implored Nigerians to leverage the housing scheme to own apartments of their choice in any part of the country.
He disclosed that over 5,000 houses across 34 states and the FCT are at different stages of completion, noting that access to affordable houses is a challenge for many, per reporting by THISDAY.
“We have houses scattered across the country that are not occupied. This is because people have a preference for different building styles. In the North, the people there prefer bungalows, while the South prefers blocks of flats.
“So first, what we did was to carry out a survey to know what kind of houses Nigerians want to live in and that helped us to formulate relevant policies for the project. We currently have over 5,000 units at different stages of completion.
“The least selling price for each of these houses will be N7.222 million, and the highest will be N16.19 million.
“The highest is a 3-bedroom bungalow, it is not just the house but it also has land along with it. The bungalows are a little more expensive than the blocks of flats which do not have additional land.
“There are some slight price differences in the blocks of flats built in the riverine and swampy areas, for example, houses in Edo, Bayelsa.
“This is the first time we have a platform that every Nigerian has access to. This provides an opportunity for all Nigerians to apply and ensure a fair process of allocation.
“We will soon start the official handover and tape cutting as the subscribers come in. We have maintenance and facilities managers in all the estates.
“We introduced the online portal from which the national housing programme will be offered to members of the public. The forms are online and allow for more openness, limits human interventions, and hold us more accountable. The endgame is an economic objective.”
Engagement of local contractors
He said research done by the ministry was instrumental to the implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and contractors handling the projects are wholly Nigerian.
“No international contractors were involved. We have 1,000 contractors from Nigeria. It also gave the contractors an opportunity to sustain their staff. Also, all materials for the project were locally made materials.”
Fashola urged Nigerians to register online with a passport photograph, current tax clearance payslip, letter of recommendation, means of identification, and evidence of 10 per cent initial deposit for mortgage subscribers only.
“Applicants can also take a virtual tour of the property they are interested in. They can apply and register with email and phone number. Upon verification, they can complete their application.
“We have included the abridged drawings of each estate. When an allocation is booked on the online portal, it will show that it is no longer available. This way we will avoid duplicity.”
Fashola reiterated that the ministry is “the policy head of those parastatals like the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and so on.
“We are saying that the National Housing Programme had not succeeded in the past and some of the houses built then still remain empty. So we conducted a national survey across the zones just to find out what is acceptable.”
He said the survey found preference in the North for bungalow and large expanse of land which encourage building horizontally, and in the South acceptance of blocks of flats and lack of space which makes building vertically necessary.
He stressed that the current NHP is a pilot scheme meant to galvanise private sector participation, among other objectives
“We applied for land from the states and we set out to do a demonstration or a pilot programme because we then wanted to validate what we saw and build a pilot scheme.
“So as at today we have built 5,000 plus units in different stages of completion. We have done in Phase 1 and we have done in Phase 2 and some have started in Phase 3.
“It was also a way to implement our Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) because as at the time we conceived this programme, the country was in recession” but it has fulfilled that objective because over 1,000 “businesses owned by Nigerians and Nigerian contractors” were engaged.
Isah commended Abuja for its commitment to housing delivery as well as Fashola for the innovations he has brought to the national level, which he said replicate his development initiatives as Lagos Governor from 2007 to 2015.