FG, stakeholders differ on economic sense in building low-cost houses for Nigerians

The federal government and stakeholders in the housing industry are walking separate ways in their views on the economic sense or viability of government building low-cost houses for Nigerians.

The government reasons that building low-cost houses for Nigerians is no longer viable, citing high cost of building materials which government does not have total control of.

“If you want low cost housing, where’s low cost land, low cost cement, low cost doors and low cost labour to deliver low cost housing?” queried Babatunde Fashola, minister for works and housing, who spoke at an Arise TV programme recently.

But the stakeholders reason differently, insisting that it is viable for the government to build low-cost houses for Nigerians, especially for those who cannot afford what is on offer in the market.

“We need bold, radical solutions; not just outside-the-box solutions, but without-a-box solutions. Everywhere in Nigeria, there are innovative solutions taking place on a small scale. We should seek them out and scale up the ideas. The solutions are right here amongst us. We do not need to travel abroad to find them,” noted Festus Adebayo, president, Housing Development Advocacy Network, in Abuja.

Adebayo cited Centre for Affordable Housing based in South Africa which notes that the lowest cost of a house produced by a private developer in Africa in 2019 at the cost of $8,000 (N2,999,900) is affordable to only 26 percent of the urban population in Nigeria, stressing that this should make the country think of where government interventions should be directed.

He advised that Nigeria should build, on a massive scale, low-income residential layouts with minimal infrastructure for the urban poor, adding that government should immediately get out of the present contractor-procurement system of building houses and focus on public private partnerships (PPPs) and the provision of an enabling environment.

The minister had contended that what the government could do to make houses affordable was to create the right environment for the industry by working out right policies.

He was of the view that every decision taken in the sector now has to be driven by hard data with adherence to market segmentation, recalling that some houses built by the Shehu Shagari administration in the 80s in the north have been left unoccupied because no survey was carried out as to the taste of those who needed the houses.

The minister explained that he had not been talking about low cost housing because “there is no low cost land. What government can do is to make the houses affordable and dignified.”

He described as outrageous some data pushed out by some individuals and groups on the housing sector, saying that Nigerians talked a lot about affordability without talking about acceptability.

“Acceptability is also connected. If I build a house that is too small, even though you can afford it, you won’t like it,” he explained, adding, “in the past, people did not occupy some of the houses because it was different from what they wanted. In the north, bungalows are the in-thing as opposed to blocks of flats. We have seen them reject houses that were built during the Shagari era.”

The stakeholders, however, said it was important for the minister to know that the masses of this country expect dividends of democracy, including low-cost housing, from their government, more so when the same government promised to provide affordable housing for them.