AHCN demands govt’s commitment to tackle housing deficit, affordability challenge

Apparently perturbed by the state of the housing sector in the last one year, the Association of Housing Corporation of Nigeria (AHCN) is demanding a renewed government’s commitment to tackle the housing deficit and affordability challenge in the country.

Besides, the association stated that the government would need to take the bull by the horns by committing to provision of social and affordable housing.

According to the President/Chairman of Council of AHCN, Dr Victor Onukwugha, such improved commitment by the government would encourage more developers to engage in low income housing.

For this to happen, Onukwugha said the government would need to give tax rebates and incentives to developers to encourage them to engage in low income housing.

The AHCN boss explained further that the potential of the housing sector could be tapped for driving the economic recovery with pragmatic and concerted efforts to tackle housing deficit and affordability challenges.

Reeling out the scorecards of the nation’s housing sector in the past 12 months during the celebration of this year’s World Habitat Day, Onukwugha bemoaned low performance of the sector, pointing out that government’s commitment to lead the crusade of converting opportunities in the housing sector to deliberate and profitable economic venture and growth, has continually remained untapped for economic recovery.

The theme of this year’s celebration is; ‘Accelerating Urban Action for a Carbon-free World.”

The AHCN president also renewed calls for the use of local building materials, saying they should also be encouraged and promoted to arouse acceptability by the general public, who had developed apathy for their usage.

“NBRRI has developed so many local building materials for use in the building sector and interlocking technology of Hydraform is gaining acceptability which can be adopted by the government in areas where we have high concentration of laterite.

“There are different components of local materials that have been developed that could be used to bring down the cost of development for the low income. Government should therefore be in the forefront of promoting these materials to service the needs of the low income group,” he said.

Onukwugha stated that many areas in the urban centres have been gradually turning into slums settlement as a result of non-availability of decent housing and environment that are pocket friendly to most vulnerable Nigerians.

According to him, the few available decent houses in the cities were overcrowded; pointing out that this situation put serious pressure on unserviceable infrastructures that are in general use.

He added that the drainage systems were constantly at the mercy of floods with deluge of dirt that polluted the environment.

Ruminating on the theme of this year 2021 World Habitat Day, he said that one could begin to wonder where to initiate urban actions that require acceleration.

“This is because our urban centres are characterised with myriads of challenges that impact negatively on the lives of the people amidst deplorable effects of global pandemic that hamper business and economic development.

“Slum settlements are springing up in our major cities without a notable government’s plan of resettlement or redevelopment,” he said.

To this end, the president of AHCN urged that a sustainable, habitable, humane and decent environment for the most vulnerable people should be created to accelerate urban action for a carbon free society.

“Sustainable and seamless housing provision procedure for the people will be established and viable partnership  options in favour of the masses will be influenced and embrace at all level of policy formulation and implementation

“Housing challenges of both formal and informal segments of low income groups could be converted to opportunities and tapped with an appropriate mortgage system that could generate adequate income from within the system to drive the sector and the economy.”

According to Onukwugha, Nigeria needs to be positioned where appropriate syndication of the mortgage market in an attractive vicious cycle from the primary beneficiary to the primary mortgage institutions to secondary mortgage market with regulated policy would safeguard and regulate the market and make housing available to even the low-income earners who genuinely require housing without stress.

He added that Nigeria would need to be developed to the status where mortgage creation, origination and lending will be guaranteed against losses resulting from borrower defaults on their residential mortgages with formidable foreclosure laws.

To get to this status, Onukwugha explained that Nigeria requires pragmatic approaches and appropriate strategies to tackle housing deficit and affordable mass housing production with a view to utilising housing as a veritable tool for economic recovery thereby empowering the people to reduce unemployment in the society.