Lagos to introduce monthly payment on housing schemes

LAGOS State government has said it has perfected plans to introduce monthly payment plan on its Home Ownership Mortgage Schemes, popularly called Lagos HOMS, across the state, pointing out that this was being done in a bid to cushion the effects of economic recession in the country.

The state governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, stated this after embarking on an extensive inspection tour of projects across the state.

He said his administration had decided to scale up the rent-to-own policy by introducing monthly payment plan whereby people could pay monthly, instead of being compelled to make a down payment of 30 per cent of the total cost or pay for one year.

“We believe strongly that people should be able to pay one month rent and live in our housing schemes. We don’t think in a recession, we should be having a situation where we allow people to come and buy when they don’t have money or to come and pay one year rent.

“We think the way to move forward is to allow these our younger ones to just pay one month deposit and pay one month rent and move into the houses and then more or less play up our rent-to-own scheme,” Governor Ambode said.

While speaking on the pocket-friendly initiatives of his administration on housing, Governor Ambode said the state government had taken time to review its mortgage schemes vis-à-vis its financial flow, adding that many ongoing housing schemes had reached advanced stages of completion and that they would be rolled out in a matter of months.

The governor, who inspected the Illubirin Housing Scheme in Lagos Island, said government, in partnership with private sector, was making arrangement to transform the scheme into a live, work and play environment.

“In addition to that, the other housing projects that we are doing are on course and I want to assure Lagosians that in the next few months, we will be seeing a whole lot of housing units being rolled out,” the governor said.

On his part, the state Commissioner for Housing, Mr Gbolahan Lawal, debunked insinuation that the Illubirin Housing Scheme had been abandoned, saying that government was rather working to improve on the project which is sitting on 28 hectares.

He recalled how the project started under the administration of former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Tinubu with sand filling, while his predecessor, Mr Babatunde Fashola carried on with the project.

“Now, under the administration of Governor Ambode, we want to scale it up and the idea is to make this place a live, play and work environment and so we are projecting 500 units instead of the 1,260 that the scheme was formerly designed for,” he said.