The Honorable Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa on Thursday berated the Federal Housing Authority(FHA) for not delivering enough houses to Nigerians in the last five decades.
The Minister who spoke during the FHA’ 50th anniversary ceremony, described the it’s provision of 50,000 housing units in the last 50 years as unacceptable.
In his words, “Now, ten years after commercialization, records show that FHA has only delivered a cumulative of just over 50,000 housing units. That shows an average of 1,000 houses per year in 50 years.
“This is clearly not acceptable, especially from Nigeria’s foremost housing agency that has so many institutional advantages that it can leverage to deliver more results
He added: “This includes free access to land from the federal government in all layouts and new districts, relationships with other government entities like the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and strategic positioning to engage in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) with reputable developers given its name recognition as a government agency.”
Furthermore, the minister revealed that the Algerian government with a similar agency like the FHA, provided over one million housing units for it citizens and went on to urge the FHA to wake up and do better
“Last month, during the Shelter Afrique EGM in Algeria, I discovered from my engagements with the Algerian Government that an Agency like the FHA delivers between 400,000 and 1m houses annually. In fact, in a particular year, that Agency delivered 1,060,000 houses. This underscores the need for FHA to aggressively upscale its delivery capacity.
“I am also pained to say that analysis of all the PPPs that the FHA has entered into over the years have delivered little or no value to the country. This is also not acceptable. FHA needs to wake up to its responsibilities,” he said
