The Minister of State for Works and Housing, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo, says the Land Use Act 1978 is hindering the Federal Government’s efforts towards building affordable houses for middle and low-income earners.
He said this in Abuja when he visited the head office of the Federal Housing Authority.
“The Land Use Act is a challenge because like you know, under it, all lands are under the administration of respective state governments. Here is a federal agency that wants to develop houses for low-income and middle-income earning Nigerians and it does not have land, it means we’re at the mercy of the various state governments for us to get land, you can’t build a house on water, houses are built on lands,” he said.
The minister called for a reform of the Act to ease access to land and provision of affordable houses.
Earlier, FHA Managing Director, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, decried the removal of the agency from budgetary allocations, saying this limited it from providing affordable housing to Nigerians.
