President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, August 28, through the Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has indicated plans to slash the exorbitant price of rents being charged by landlords, across the country.
In a bid to achieve the feat, the Federal Government has adopted 6 different house designs for its mass housing programme, across the different geo-political zones of the federation, and the construction is expected to commence in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Fashola, who made this known at the First City People Real Estate and Housing Lecture, held in Lagos, stressed the need to overhaul the nation’s mortgage system to make home ownership easy.
He said, “We have concluded this, starting from about 21 different designs, working down to 12, and concluding on 6.“The designs would include one, two and three bedroom bungalows, blocks of 16 and 24 flats of one, two and three bedrooms and bungalows of one and two bedrooms.”
He explained that the one, two, and three bedroom bungalow designs will have court yards, in order to make them respond to the climate change and cultural leanings of the North, adding that, they would be built in States in the North-East, North-West and North-Central parts of the country.
Those to be constructed in the South-South, South-East and South-West regions and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, will be bungalows of one and two bedrooms.
Fashola, in a press statement through his Special Adviser on Communications, Hakeem Bello, also disclosed that the housing blueprint, would lead to industrialisation of the construction sector, which would in turn, help to reduce delivery time from the estimated 18 months to about 6 months, for a standard flat.
Decrying the shortage of housing in Nigeria, the Minister disclosed that it was largely due to the high cost of building materials, leading to high cost of both purchase and rent.
In a bid to change the situation, he said the ministry’s roadmap, targets low and medium income earners, who are first time home owners, adding that, aside certifying and accrediting developers from the private sector, the Federal Government will also fund the project in a short run.
On the exploitative system of rent payment in Nigeria, Fashola, reinforced the need for a credit system in our real estate sector, where payments for rent are matched not only to the quantum, but also the timing of income.
He added, ”The present system whereby people who earn their salary monthly were made to pay rent in advance, was abnormal.“People, who get paid weekly, monthly or yearly, should pay their rent weekly, monthly or yearly”.
Fashola, maintained that aside relieving a lot of pressure on ordinary working people, it would allow increased occupancy of many flats that are empty across the country, “because people cannot pay multiple year advance rent from weekly, or monthly incomes they received in arrears.”
It would both reduce the frustrations of landlords, who depend on their houses for income, and the trauma of families with children who are unsure when they will be thrown on the streets on the other hand, Fashola noted.
Like Us on Facebook!
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Click to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.