FG spends over N10bn on Zuba housing project

…to be commissioned in six months

The Federal Government has invested over N10 billion in the ongoing Zuba Federal Housing Estate project.

This is aimed at tackling housing deficit in the country.

The project is meant for both contributors of the National Housing Fund and other low income Nigerians, self-employed, public or private workers.

Speaking last week during an inspection tour of the Zuba Housing project in Abuja, the Managing Director, Federal Housing Authority, Prof. Muhammad Al-Amin, said interested individuals only need to meet up with the requirements for acquiring a house in the estate, adding that the opportunity was “open to all Nigerians to own a house at the doors of the Federal Capital City”.

The Zuba housing project has three different house types – one, two, three and bedrooms – all semidetached apartments and involves 16 numbers of three blocks of flats which consist of 8 blocks, and each blocks has 16 units of three bedrooms,8 blocks  of two bedrooms made up of 25 units; 16 blocks of one bedroom apartments and five blocks of terraced 3 bedrooms which consist of 2 units – which makes it a total number 508 active apartment which constructions is taken place.   When asked about the procedure of application for the houses, Al-Amin said already, the FHA has forms at its various offices as well as on its website, adding that as soon as the project reached about 80 percent completion, the forms will be released.

“In the next six months, this housing project will be completed and commissioned by the president himself for all Nigerians to benefit from and from there we will move to another site, Bwari precisely, as soon as the 2018 budget appropriation is released, to begin exactly this housing prototype.

“This idea by the Federal Government is aimed at reducing the housing deficit in the country and also give every Nigerian the opportunity of owning a house of his own,” he said.

The MD, while briefing journalists, added that so far the project has reached about 55 percent work stage and gulped about N6.2 billion while N3.7 billion will be spent to complete the work on the estate.

Daily Trust observed that several facilities have already been put in place within the estate such as drainages, 2.6km access road network, water and electricity.

He explained that the project and several others were included in the federal budget to ensure that they were completed, to improve the FHA’s revenue generation, enable it start new projects, particularly on buyable sites and also improve social infrastructures of other FHA’s existing estates.

Meanwhile, while commending the efforts of the housing authority in overseeing work on the Zuba Housing project, the chairman Senate Committee on Housing, Senator Barnabas Gemade, said his members were satisfied with the decision on the involvement of the FHA in the National Housing Scheme.

“I want to also thank the Hon. Minister for Works, Power and  Housing,  Babatunde Fashola, for using the agency among those that are delivering the national housing scheme.

“The quality of work here is quite impressive and this project is at advanced stage of completion in the National Housing Scheme. Very soon, this estate will be delivered and Nigerians will begin to enjoy what has been set for them,” he said.