PROPERTY Addressing Plateau’s 500,000 housing deficit
Except for the State low cost housing units of the 1970’s and the Shagari mass housing scheme in the 1980’s, not much has been done in terms of direct provision of mass housing units for citizens in Plateau State. Plateau like other parts of the country has a high demand for housing that outweighs its present supply. For years, government has not been successful in its attempts to provide affordable and sustainable housing for Nigerians which is why the 2012 National Housing Policy and National Urban Development Policy calls for the use of Public Private Partnership (PPP) in order to address the glut of problems in Nigeria’s housing sector.
Expensive and cumbersome process of processing land documents as well as high cost of construction and lack of expertise are some of the factors that have stretched Nigeria’s enormous housing deficit.
The World Bank and the National Bureau of Statistics estimate the current national housing deficit at 17 million units.
Information from the Plateau State Ministry of Housing and Urban Development estimates a deficit of between 450,000 to 500,000 units for the entire state and a 240,000 deficit for the Greater Jos master plan area. The area referred to as the Greater Jos master plan comprises of Jos North, Jos South and parts of Jos east, Bassa and Barkin Ladi LGA’s.
Based on these statistics, some say the cumulative of over 40,000 units the present administration of Simon Bako Lalong intends to provide sounds like a drop in an ocean.
The state government had last year entered into agreements with various developers to construct about 33,000 housing units within the Greater Jos master plan. It also signed an MoU with a Chinese company to provide 7,500 units in the three senatorial districts of the state. This is beside the federal government’s mass housing unit which has already taken off at Laminga in Jos East Local Government Area.
However, Ibrahim Yunus, a citizen of Jos North says there are fears that low income earners to whom such housing units are meant to benefit will likely be sidelined. Our correspondent gathered from civil servants in the state that about 5000 forms have already been distributed to interested civil servants to access mortgage facilities from the Federal Housing Authority mortgage bank under the national housing fund.
The Commissioner for Housing and Urban Development, Arch. Samuel Galadima, said proving affordable housing for low income earners is a key component the government intends to address and all efforts will be made to ensure that low income earners benefit from the project. Galadima said 15 developers have signed agreements to go into PPP with the government through the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to provide the 33,000 units and some of the developers have since moved to site.
“The present administration signed agreements with nine developer and the immediate past administration had already signed agreement with six developers making it 15. At least four of the developers have moved to site and we are expecting four others to move before the end of February,” he said.
Daily Trust gathered that some of the communities where the housing units will be constructed have two or three sites such as Mista Ali, Kwang, Kwata and Bisichi. Other locations include Naraguta, Dong, Jebu Miango, Jebu Bassa and around the National Centre for Remote Sensing.
On his part, state Commissioner for Information, Mohammed Nazifi said as part of reducing the 500, 000 housing deficits in the state, the government had also entered into agreement with a Chinese company to provide 7,500 housing units across the state.
Nazifi said the houses will be built across the three senatorial district with the central and southern senatorial districts getting 1,500 units each while the northern senatorial district which include Jos city will get 4,000 units. He said with the federal government’s project to provide additional housing for citizens, the state will in the near future experience a housing boom.
“The government has acquired five hectares of land at Laminga for the new national housing project. Compensation has been paid and titles issued to the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing preparatory,” he said. the
Our correspondent who visited the site of the federal government’s mass housing unit gathered that an additional five hectares of land will be provided to the federal government in five local government areas of Kanke, Mangu, Shendam, Mikang and Barkin Ladi.
Each of the local governments is expected to provide one hectare of land for the housing units. Though the state government was to provide the land and land titles, Daily Trust observed that it will also be expected to construct the almost three kilometers untared road from the Lamingo road into Laminga where the mass housing is located.