Johnson Somadina Anene, is the vice president of the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry, (ACCI) in charge of Commerce. In this interview with HARRISON EDEH, he spoke on how the forth-coming Abuja Investment Expo would ensure working class Nigerians could own their own homes though a ‘rent to own scheme,’ among other issues.Excerpts:
Can you speak to us on the forthcoming Abuja investment expo?
My name is Johnson Somadina Anene. I’m the Vice President of Abuja Chamber of Commerce,and chairman of the organising committee for the forth coming Abuja investment Expo; scheduled to commence with an open ceremony on 30th July and with a closing ceremony on 1st of August 2019.
What are the key expectations from this, and how impactful are we expecting it to be?
The Expo is about attracting more investment into the country, and particularly the Federal Capital Territory. This year’s own is being organised to consolidate and build on the gains of the previous editions.
We are also using this to foster Closer working relationship and cooperation between the Public and the Private sectors, so that they don’t see themselves as competitors rather to begin to see themselves as complementing each other’s role geared towards bringing about increased economic development.
Also,we want to use this year’s edition to see how we could tackle the concerns of housing deficit. It is no more news that Nigeria has an ever increasing 17 million housing deficits-meaning that about 17 million Nigerians are either poorly accommodate or not accommodate at all. We want to use the investment Expo to see how we could tackle all these issues.
How often do we expect this event or is it just a one off something?
It is not going to be a one off something, but at least we have to start from somewhere. In doing that, we are introducing and pushing a scheme called: ‘Rent to own housing scheme’ whereby we get the housing estate operators to allow the tenant the opportunity to own houses by paying rent, of which that rent is taking as part payment of the purchase price of the house overtime.
We had found out that most people in the middle class and some civil servants cannot afford housing costs that we are talking about.
We also want to use this year’s edition to tackle high cost of housing .We want to tackle it from three ends. One is to appeal to the government agencies that allocate lands, to ensure that these plots are allocated to housing developers not speculators that would get the land and re-sell.
Secondly, we are also using it to promote the production of building materials locally. Because if you get these building materials at lower prices, that will definitely bring down the cost of the building of these houses.
The third one is the cost of finance. We are looking at construction fundings, and mortgages to ensure that it remains at single digit, not just on paper but in practice.
At the investment expo, are you looking at a model to attract private capital into housing sector?
I’ve continued saying it that the government has no business to direct provision of houses; what they need to do is to provide that enabling environment, the infrastructure, and also encourage private sector investors to invest.
If you allocate the land for instance to investors instead of speculators, the investor would have saved up the money he would have used in buying land. Likewise if you provide infrastructure, you would have also saved him the money for that. Likewise, whatever money, he would have used in providing the infrastructure would have been used in providing the housing and it would help him provide more housing since the government has put up the basic infrastructure.
In that aspect, what should the government concentrate on?
The government should concentrate on making lands available. What they should now do is to ensure that whoever that is being given the land will not re-sell it, but will develop it. They can give the land to investors and give time frame, during which if you don’t embark on active development of the land it, they will withdraw it. They can make it an accelerated development strategy and even give six months window to the allottees. The estate infrastructure in this case should be done by the estate developers.
How will the AFCTA signing impact on this expo?
Yes, we have always suggested to the government to sign the African Continental Free Trade Area, (AFCTA). Nigeria is the biggest market in Africa and we are all over. We will be the greatest beneficiary of that common market. Nigeria will be better for it.
Recall, this our expo is not just housing, but ensuring Nigeria’s economic growth while attracting investment to the country in various sectors of the economy. So what we are talking about is opening up more investments to the overall economy, and get more people engaged in terms of jobs and other economic activities. We are striving to see an emergence of the middle class, and it is only the private sector that could do that.
