Mr. Festus Adebayo, a lawyer, is the Lead Promoter of the Africa International Housing Show and Executive Director, Housing Development Advocacy Network (HDAN). In this interview with DAYO AYEYEMI, at the sideline of the recent Stakeholders’ Engagement Forum organised by the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in Lagos, the astute affordable housing advocate said the Federal Government must seek the collaboration of the Bank of Industry for the appropriate finance for the manufacturers of local building materials to reduce cost. He also wants the government to lead by example in propagating the use of local building materials.
The forum centered on how to bring down the rising cost of building materials, and many suggestions have been made. What is your take?
What is happening now is that the cost of building materials has gotten to a level where Nigeria has to look for an alternative.
This is the advantage of the inflation, this is advantage of the high cost of building materials.
We are now thinking out of the box; we are looking for alternatives. That is good. It is good that we have started talking.
I must commend the Minister of Housing that he considers it as a very important thing to bring stakeholders together to discuss this. I need to also let them know that they must involve the Bank of Industry.
Bank of Industry is very critical. I’m aware that Bank of Industry has financed some small-scale organizations that are into manufacturing of electrical cables, wire and all sorts of things.
So, I am calling on the Federal Ministry of Housing to seek the collaboration of the Bank for appropriate finance. One of the things required for manufacturers of building materials is for them to get finance.
You want a firm in Nigeria that will be producing building materials, you want it to be promoted, give the firm finance at one-digit interest rate.
Where can we get such finance?
That is why I said we need Bank of Industry. We also need Standard Organization of Nigeria.
Everywhere we go, we now have substandard guage. The 12mm iron rod is no longer 12mm on the building site. What they told us about the gauge is not what we find when we get to the site. So, Standards Organization of Nigeria must rise up if we are to be using our own local building materials.
It is for them to do the standardization. This is very key. Finally, it is time to call on all the research institutes.
Where is the Nigerian Institute of Building and Road Research (NIBRRI) of this world? Where are the alternatives to cement? Can’t we get an alternative to cement? If you have alternatives to cement, what barrier are you having in commercializing it or in popularising it? In our universities, we have many research departments. What are their findings? How can it be useful for this new journey we want to embark on? We are we?
How can we reduce our dependency on imported building materials?
The minister gave us the percentage of quantity of what we are using for cement, building materials, and other things. Which of them can we, at least for now, start with? And what enabling environment is government creating? I’m aware that, we are under a government that is very much interested in tax.
So what do we do?
There’s a bill in the National Assembly that has not been passed into law , the new Tax Reform. It is time for the stakeholders, in fact, I’m calling on the stakeholders in the housing industry to come together and ensure there is something in that new tax reform that says if you are into production of local building materials in Nigeria, you are on holiday of this tax, so that the burden will not be too much for you.
And if you are into production, delivery of affordable housing, this is the tax incentive we have for you. We need to get it right now before the bill is passed. If the bill is passed without us telling them that one of the best ways you can create an enabling environment for us to start producing our own local building material is to give us tax holiday or tax rebates, it will be too late.
Finally, government needs the political will. I want the Federal Ministry of Housing to take the issue of research serious.
They must have a department that is fully devoted, seriously devoted for research. Meaning that when they do their research, they use the result of their research. I’m waiting for them to build me the Nigerian house based on that research
I am calling on them to lead by example. Let them practicalise it.
I call on research departments to rise to the challenge. I call for the use of local building materials in the government’s projects. I call for the political will, on the part of the government in the area of tax debates and other incentives.
There are many industrial lands. In Abuja, there is a place called Idu, industrial area. How many small-scale manufacturers of building materials is getting that opportunity? Is gaining anything there? How many? You pay for this, you pay for this, you pay for this.
So whatever we are discussing here today cannot be actualized unless government lead by example. The political will must be there.
Government talk about having building material hubs in the geopolitical zones. Do you see this materialising?
Excellent idea. Building material hub in all geopolitical zones will create employment, will increase the amount of local building material that is being produced in the country. It will reduce unemployment, will reduce food quality. So it is critical. It is a good way to go.
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