Babatunde Raji Fashola said the federal government is comfortable with the current partnership of the Federal Mortgage Bank and various cooperatives across the country on the back of the successes they record in suggesting appropriate design and development for proper housing delivery.
Fashola notes that the cooperatives have been key in addressing concerns of acceptability and affordability which stands in the way of access to housing because members of cooperatives are part of the delivery scheme through design and build initiative facilitated through their income level.
The minister while speaking at the commissioning of Wood hill estate under Akacare cooperatives and flag-off of housing development in Abuja said cooperatives with the support of their design and build initiative help us avoid concerns of thousands of unoccupied houses across the country.
“Every cooperative is strategic for us as our experienced and investigations have shown starkly that there are hundreds of thousands of empty and unoccupied houses in major cries across the country.
“They are empty and unoccupied because they are either overbuilt, in being too big, or under – built-in being too small and therefore not acceptable to those who need them, because in many instances no consultations took place between the builders and the consumers they built for.
The cooperatives are working with us on appropriate design and delivery to suit various income level and drive successful housing delivery, he said.
He said, “Cooperatives have traditionally proved to be successful in areas like Transportation, agriculture trade and commerce market associations and large groups in the informal sector.
He states in addition that the role of the federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria is to provide construction funding to the cooperatives to build the houses and to provide mortgage finance to the individual members to buy the house and pay back in instalments at a rate not exceeding 10 percent per annum
As every cooperative chooses what it desires and can afford, the federal Mortgage Bank will partner and providing financial support to enable you to build what is acceptable according to your income level, he states further.
