PROPERTY NEWS

If the current home deficit in Nigeria, put by stakeholders at 16 million units is to be filled, the country will require about N12tn to effectively bridge the housing gap.

The Director-General, National Pension Commission, Mr Muhammad Ahmad, said this at a grand reception organised in honour of the President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, Mr. Bode Adediji and a past president of the institution, Mr. Dosu Fatokun, by the Estate Management Department Alumni Association, Obafemi Awolowo University, in Lagos.

Represented by a senior executive in the commission, Mr. Lana Loyinmi, Ahmad said despite the establishment of several agencies and bodies by the Federal Government, such as the Federal Housing Authority and the Nigeria Building Society, which became the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria in 1977, to ensure rapid delivery of housing, the country had continued to witness the challenges of housing it’s growing population.

He said, "Current figures show that there are only 23 homes per thousand inhabitants. As far as housing is concerned, Nigeria tends to have a record of insignificant achievement. For example, only 47,200 homes were provided out of the planned 200,000 units between 1981 and 1985, representing only 23.6 per cent.

"The situation has continued to degenerate as we now have between 15 and 16 million housing deficits in which N12m is required to finance the deficits. All financing initiatives have failed to ameliorate the problem, as they only provide insignificant volume of housing loans."

He said with the current Land Use Act, it would be difficult to have a problem-free utilisation of pension funds in housing financing.

Ahmad also said processing of title document, which require that the governor‘s consent should precede land transactions was not practicable.

Also speaking, a captain of industries and a former director-general of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Mr. Hayford Alile, said most Nigerians lacked the accurate values of their property because they had refused to get them valued by professionals.

He noted that the trend was too detrimental as they got cheated by banks during loans transactions.

He said, "A lot of our properties are not valued, and therefore, difficult to ascertain for loan purposes. This country does not even know its value and this is a very serious matter. Because people do not know the values of their properties, banks strip them off just like that."