In a bid to bridge the housing deficit in the country, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Company for Habitat in Africa (Shelter Afrique) and the Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria (REDAN) have signed a $2billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to provide 10,00 housing units across the country over the next ten years.
Available data for 2014 from the World Bank and the National Bureau of Statistics agree that Nigeria has an estimated housing deficit of over 17 million units.
To abridge the gap, Richard Esin, acting managing director of FMBN, speaking on Thursday in Abuja at the signing ceremony said the bank developed a national housing model and sought the collaboration of Shelter Afrique and REDAN to provide 10,000 housing units in the next ten years.
“…We agreed that we needed to bring in Shelter Afrique to work in partnership with REDAN to make available some funds over the next ten years by providing REDAN members with the necessary construction finance that is required to drive the national housing model.
” On the part of FMBN, since we have agreed on the housing design, pricing, it will then be our responsibility to give confidence to the understanding by committing to provide the mortgage financing that will offtake the provider of the construction finance that will be required. On that basis, we had the understanding that the Nigerian market will not require anything less than $200million annually over the next ten years”.
He expressed optimism that with $200million injected in construction financing annually, 10,000 housing units will be generated and if added up to other intervention schemes over 20,000 housing units will be delivered annually.
Esin further noted that over 150,000 job would be created in the activity.
On his part, James Mugerwa, managing director and chief executive officer of Shelter Afrique, stated that the signing of the MoU was significant as the housing sector gains increasing prominence in the national development agenda of Nigeria adding that the corporation will renew strategic alliance for her, REDAN and FMBN.
He explained that Shelter Afrique being a Pan-African development financial institution that has existed for over three decades has acquired substantial operational experience and established itself as a credible housing finance institution.
Also speaking, Ugochukwu Chime, national president of REDAN said it was gratifying that the FMBN was reaching out to other stakeholders in a bid to closing the housing gap.
He regretted that previous efforts by the bank were done in isolation of critical stakeholders notting that the deficit in housing was huge and required concerted effort of all in addressing.