The Managing Director, Family Homes Funds, Femi Adewole has said the Social Housing Programme is absolutely committed in lifting a fraction of Nigeria’s population out of poverty.
The programme is aimed at delivering affordable housing and million of jobs for Nigerians.
Adewole said this on Wednesday during the media launch of the National Social Housing Programme (NSHP) portal and the unveiling of the housing samples.
He said, “Today we are doing two things. Firstly, we are launching the Online Platform which will power the National Social Housing Programme, connecting the actual building of the homes to beneficiaries, the army of young builders and construction workers we hope to raise through the programme and finally local manufacturers of building materials.
“Secondly, we will be introducing you to the sample homes we have built each costing N1.4m and N1.8m for the 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom units respectively. As these are just samples they exclude financing and infrastructure costs.
Emphasizing on the negative impacts on how poverty has deprived Nigerians from proper housing, Adewale said “the BoS 2019 Poverty and Equality report indicated that 40.1 percent of our total population were classified as poor. In other words, on average 4 out of 10 individuals in Nigeria has real per capital expenditures below 137,430 Naira per year.
“This translates to over 82.9 million Nigerians who are considered poor by national standards. According to the BoS, 18% of these (about 15m) live in urban areas.
“In simple terms, it means that all 82.9m Nigerians can afford to spend on anything – housing, food, healthcare, education, clothing is a maximum of N137,840 naira a year. So it is safe to assume that they can only afford to spend a fraction of this on housing,” he said.
Adewole said that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration is committed lifting a fraction of the population out of poverty through the Social Housing Programme.
So the two things we are doing today are the first steps on what is no doubt a long and difficult journey towards ensuring that every child regardless of the economic status of his or her parents has a safe and decent roof over their head. A place to nurture their dreams and hatch their potential away from the grip of poor housing.
Adewole said the online Portal launched today will “enable us to allocate housing in an open and transparent way. Individuals can log on the site to register interest in specific projects. For those who are not able to navigate modern technology, we will collaborate with other partners including Mortgage Banks and Co-perative Society to provide assistance.
“Secondly, it provides opportunity for group of young professionals with qualification, skills or experience in building and construction to register interest in participation as SME Partners. Typically SME Partners will be given the opportunity to build about 20 – 30units of housing initially going on to larger opportunities as they grow. We expect to hire about 6000 SME Delivery Partners during the life of the project.
“Finally, the portal will provide opportunity for local manufacturers of building materials such as doors, windows, ironmongery etc to register interest in participation as bulk suppliers into the project. This will help us achieve one of the project objectives of ensuring up to 90% local inputs by 2021. It will have the opportunity to revitalize parts of our manufacturing sector and create more jobs.”
