Abuja sold public buildings and maintenance challenges

Management of high rise residential buildings is a huge challenge not only in Abuja but in many other cities around the world. This is due to the presence of multiple housing units, owned and occupied by different and diverse manners of people, some mindful of their responsibilities, safety and sanitation, others not. The income levels of owners and occupants also vary, yet they live in the same block of multiple housing units sharing many facilities which they must contribute equally to manage.

Abuja’s circumstance presents a diverse scenario. In less than 15 years after government sold all the high rise residential buildings it built for the civil servants and handed off their managements, signs of cracks indicating structural failures due to neglect, unkempt building walls as a result of plumbing leakages from the top to bottom of the buildings and haphazard electrical connections, all of which constitute eye sore to the environment, are now conspicuously visible in many of the buildings.

High rise residential complexes are managed through contributory funding by the property owners, while engaging management corporations. Studies carried out in Malaysia revealed that maintenance policy procedures are based on house rule and contract agreement and building maintenance standard is not available in all buildings. Meanwhile, owners’ failure to keep up payment leads to shortage of fund which affects the corporation’s capacity to provide quality services.

One of the major pre-occupations of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) during the initial period of construction activities in Abuja was that of building houses for the civil servants in the Garki I, Garki II and Wuse I districts tagged, Accelerated Districts Construction Project (ADCP). Others were also built in Gwagwalada and other satellite towns of the FCT. This policy aroused from the Abuja Master Plan, because it took into consideration the problem of housing in the Nigerian cities and observed that even with interest-free mortgage financing and with 25 percent of income devoted to housing, civil servants cannot afford to buy houses. It thus proposed that a large segment of the city residents would require substantial direct subsidy.

Consequently, government did not only allocate official residences to the civil servants, but it also maintained it. However, in later years, confronted by skyrocketing cost of maintenance, the Federal Executive Council approved the sale of these official residences giving the occupants rights of first refusal. The government did not only recover its investment, but also shelved the liability of maintenance of the houses to the owners.

A substantial number of the civil servants with less income bought the houses through mortgage loans and sold to second parties, because the deductions for settlement of the loans were too much in comparison to their monthly salaries amidst other domestic needs. Subsequently, they bought houses outside the FCT in areas around Suleja and Mararraba where houses are cheaper and they can afford to commute from there to work daily.

On the other hand it is difficult to secure the cooperation of the individual residents to contribute for the maintenance of the structures, because the other civil servants that can manage living in the bought houses are now either retirees, or have very poor salary scales, irrespective of their grade levels. In a particular area, a residential block was seen facing serious erosion threat capable of undercutting the foundation, with the occupants maintaining a nonchalant posture.

While selling the houses the Government conducted the exercise in a hurry, without making policy for their maintenance by the new owners. The manifestation of this challenge came to fore recently when a residential high rise block among those sold in Garki II District developed a structural challenge which threw the occupants in danger of possible building collapse. While some of the occupants evacuated earlier in view of the impending danger, others did not, until the Authority forced the evacuation, after the occupant’s refusal to comply with several enforcement notices. Some of the occupants had to be assisted by the FCT Administration to get alternative place prior to the building maintenance.

Since the structure was sold and bought willingly by the occupants, the burden of maintenance is on the new owners not the government. Not minding this fact, the government is now shouldering the burden of the maintenance, because, in the event of any mishap the government of the day will be at the receiving end. Unfortunately, the government ended up substituting its earlier function of maintenance to that of social responsibility presently, due to the negligence, or inability of the house owners to maintain.

Like all other cities with such challenges, what is earnestly needed is the fashioning of building maintenance policy suitable to our circumstances, with standard management procedure in both residential and commercial high rise buildings, to serve as a tool and be enforced legally in order to ensure the consistency of quality, safety and service to end users as well as the general public.