A housing expert, Mrs Eucheria Alozie, has stressed the need for African governments to address many years of inadequate investment and poor maintenance culture.
Alozie who is the head of Public Private Partnership, Directorate of the Federal Ministry of Housing, made the demand at the 32nd Annual Conference of the African Union for Housing Finance, held in Abuja, recently.
The event was aimed at finding solutions to Africa’s housing problems and stimulating the continent’s economy.
She identified the lack of housing finance in the public and private sectors, and double digit housing loans, as major factors that must be addressed for Africans to access affordable housing.
According to reports Africa’s need for affordable housing is 400 million units.
But to solve this problem Alozie insisted that heads of African governments must tackle the challenge head-on.
Similarly, a board member of the African Union for Housing Finance, Professor Charles Inyangete, expressed concerns about the challenge of affordable housing, while the director of other financial institutions of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr Ahmed Abdullahi, however, pointed out that African countries could shore up their revenues if they could effectively tap into the abundant opportunities in the housing sector.
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