‘Lack of efficient mortgage schemes impeding social housing’

Stakeholders in the housing sector have berated the current mortgage system in the country which they say is impeding the growth and promotion of social housing for low income earners in Nigeria.

Speaking recently at a forum to review the proposed housing design and mortgage structure for low income groups in Lagos state, the stakeholders posited that even with significant efforts aimed at addressing the nation’s housing deficits, many of the low income earners, who they said, constitute the lion’s share of the nation’s population, were often left behind because of lack of efficient mortgage system in the country.

According to them, affordable housing is unrealistic if left to the government alone. While calling for flexibility in the system especially in certain areas, they urged government to make lands available for social housing.

The Project Director, Arctic Infrastructure, Lookman Oshodi, lamented that near absence of mortgage coupled with the development of housing types without taking care of the low income had made accessibility to housing very difficult. Oshodi therefore called for a review of the housing types in new housing programmes, which would include the enthronement of strong virile mortgage system as well as easier land acquisition.

According to him, new housing programmes and urban renewals should not only consider the low income group because of their critical mass but should take their interests into consideration or made a priority.

He also identified funding as a major problem in housing, saying where there was no adequate provision for housing financing, low income groups would be denied access to housing.

Similarly, another stakeholder and Director of sustainability West Africa Lead, Ernst & Young, Mr. Opeyemi Owolabi pointed out that investment in government housing had regrettably been speculative in nature.

Owolabi who is also a member of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), however called for mass approach to meet the housing demands. According to him, there is need for social inclusion to capture the informal sector, which he insisted provided 85 percent of the labour force.

Meanwhile, the stakeholders also urged the government to work towards reducing the nation’s massive housing deficit by coming up with policy-driven incentives for private developers in order to attain affordable housing. Such incentives, according to them, should include rebates for approval for mass or social housing.

According to them, the present government’s efforts at providing about 100,000 houses per annum is leaving a deficit of 700,000 housing units, which they insisted might not be attained without active private sector participation.