Suru Group, a company focusing in accommodation, hotels, properties and real estate developments has called on the federal government to invest in real estate in order to reduce the country’s current poverty rate.
This call is coming at a time when findings by the Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization based in Washington published a recently indicated that Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor in early 2018 with six persons becoming poor every minute.
The report said, “At the end of May 2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had about 87 million people in extreme poverty compared with India’s 73 million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.”
Speaking during a press briefing in Lagos last week, Edward Akinlade, chairman of Suru Group, said one of the ways government can address Nigeria’s current poverty rate is to build homes.
Akinlade explained that if federal government decides to build 100,000units per year in every State in Nigeria, this will amount to 3.6million new homes every year, adding that the effect of this is that it will lead to employment and create nothing less than 2million jobs every year.
“The federal government has the money to do this. Bonds were raised and oversubscribed, so we had to return the money to the subscribers. If you bring that money into the country, we are not bringing it for recurrent expenditure but for capital project only.
“We have nothing less than 25million shortage of homes in Nigeria and the bulk of the problem is in Lagos. If we build more homes for people, we will reduce this. The people will use a mortgage system to pay the money back,” he said.
He suggested that the federal government should encourage companies like Suru Group to deliver 10,000 units within a period of time. To do this, he said, “The government can give us the land. We will develop and split the accommodation. The total unit will end up in the housing port; it is just the ownership that will be different. It will be a win-win situation. We will make money, the government too will make money and because we are getting the land from the government, the price will be low.
“Nigeria can be transformed with homes. People can also use the security of their houses to get more loans to do business. It has a multiplier effect. Expanding investments in homes can take us out of poverty in one year.”
Akindele further disclosed that the group is developing about 40 flats in Ikorodu, which will be completed by December. He said buyers can pay half the value of the home and pay the remaining sum within a period of two years.
