Stakeholders at the 15th edition of the Abuja International Housing Show (AIHS) have called on the government to increase investment and build affordable houses to aid the recovery of economic activities greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event which was held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, with the theme “Sustainable and Resilient Housing Solutions for a Post Pandemic World”, brought together the crème de la crème in the housing sector in Nigeria to proffer solutions to the soaring housing deficit, as well as affordable housing in the country.
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In his welcome address, the Convener of AIHS, Barr Festus Adebayo, underscored the importance of this year’s theme as the housing sector post-pandemic should be viewed as a necessary and critical social infrastructure for fighting the menace of the pandemic.
Adebayo noted that to prevent the mass fatalities witnessed in some countries due to the COVID-19 infections, it was pertinent to invest in innovations that would enable housing to be a tool in combating the virus.
While commending the CBN, Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders for the establishment of the N200 billion National Social Housing Programme managed by the Family Homes Funds to deliver 300,000 housing units for low-income earners, he stressed on the need to build affordable housing by government and the private sector to effectively tackle the growing house deficit.
“The challenges that we face as a country in the housing sector are enormous. Our housing deficit, though currently being contested, estimated to be over 17million housing units, is still the highest on the African continent. To address this, the youth need to be involved to steer the designing of a future affordable housing.”
In his speech, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, said the federal government was intervening in making housing affordable with the inauguration of the National Housing Programme (NHP).
Represented by the Minister of State for Works and Housing, Engr Abubakar Aliyu, Fashola said the programme was the provision of a pilot housing scheme that was affordable, accessible and acceptable as contained in the National Housing Policy with the use of local content to build the houses.
He said, “The approach to the design and use of materials takes cognizance of the cultural and environment considerations of the regions by responding to the tenets of the building energy and efficiency code. The overall economic value chain arising from the housing construction activities are mostly beneficial to the Nigerian youths who are directly involved in the physical production of the houses.”
He added that a total of 1,021 building contractors have been engaged under Phases 1 and 2 of the programme with 13,680 and 41,040 direct and indirect jobs generated with the construction of 4,694 housing units, “out of which 2,249 units have been completed in 34 States and FCT with a total of 41 sites spread over the 34 States and FCT.”
He maintained that housing challenges are prevalent in urban centres due to urbanization which creates excess demand for houses, leading to economic problems, price hike and scarcity in affordability and accessibility of houses.
He noted that home seekers transact more with private companies and with the pandemic, there has been default in payment of rent, private homeowners should give back some of what they control in the way the federal government has given back to citizens.
He further said, “For example, in cases where rent of businesses or individuals are due for renewal, the private landlords can give back by accepting monthly, quarterly, or half-yearly rent instead of one, two or three years rent in advance. The risk of defaults can be secured by bank guarantee insurance bonds provided by the tenant or the employer in exchange for a mandate from the employee for the deduction of his rent from his salary to pay the landlord.”
He said since the intervention of the federal government to ensure affordable housing in the country, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has engaged 86 cooperative societies in projects worth N35 billion with N10.95 billion cumulatively disbursed.
On his part, the Minister of Environment, Dr Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar, called for a collaborative effort to tackle environment degradation by building environmental homes.
He stressed that the devastating impact of climate change could see the extinction of land in some areas which will wipe livelihoods and homes of those to be affected.
“Coronavirus will be a child’s play if the climate goes crazy, we all know that the pandemic has wiped away finances but climate change will take all that we have. The time is now to adopt methods of mitigation and resilience to tackle the next pandemic ahead of us.”
Ghana’s Minister of State, Ministry of Works and Housing, Dr Freda Prempeh, pointed that affordable housing had long been sidelined but that it was the comprehensive and sustainable humanitarian response that could be deployed with to tackle pandemic and prevent future public health catastrophes in any post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan.
She said, “In these devastating times, the current living conditions in informal settlements and slum areas are likely to potentially increase the risk of infection of the virus within and across these settlements. These high-risk groups mostly live in overcrowded high-density informal settlements, with inadequate social and hygiene infrastructure facilities.”
She added that investing in the construction of decent, affordable housing needs to be a top priority for African countries to solve the problems of healthcare, pandemic protection and prosperity.
She further said with the global economy contracting by 4.5 per cent, construction of environment-smart affordable housing is needed to drive macroeconomic growth, stimulate job creation and financial sector to enable thousands of Africans to escape the poverty cycle.
In his address, the Minister of FCT, Mohammed Musa Bello, promoted innovation, energy efficiency in buildings and encouraged the development of a financially inclusive industry in order to effectively tackle the housing deficit.
The event saw the presentation of awards to the governors of Lagos, Borno and Yobe states for policies implemented to ensure low-income owners have access to affordable houses, while Ghana’s Minister of State, Ministry of Works and Housing, Dr Freda Prempeh, was awarded the minister of the year.
Panelists at the occasion identified stimulus packages for developers and suppliers as key in making the housing affordable.
They called for the need to adopt small scale developers in the implementation of mass housing schemes to support economic growth recovery.
They identified rise in construction materials, expensive materials, rising unemployment as the major factors for the high rate of housing in the country.
The event saw the Minister of State for Works and Housing, Engr Aliyu, visit stands of exhibitors as he advised that to access the housing funds of the federal government, housing companies needed to form cooperatives to benefit from the programme.
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