The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ama Pepple, has urged private investors to ensure that good, affordable and high quality houses are provided for Nigerians.
She disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at the “Ground Breaking event” of the UACN Property Development Company (UPDC) Metro City. Pepple said that one of the projects of the President Jonathan’s transformation agenda was for government to build one million houses every year, to improve the housing stock in the nation.
“I know that we have a deficit of about 60 or 70million. Like I always say, I do not think it is that high, because every day, everywhere, not only in Abuja, you will see estates coming up in different parts of the country. The problem is, we do not have accurate data of the houses that are being put into the housing stock all over the country.
“I do hope that, before long, we will be able to get accurate data on the housing stock and how much we have reduced the deficit in the housing sector,” she said.
?The chairman of UPDC, Halimat Ajao also said that many more people will have access to good homes as a result of this project, “we are hoping that with what the UPDC are doing here, this will help bring down the deficit of housing and also with the provision of houses to Nigerians.”
The head of UPDC, Hakeem Oguniren, urged the government to provide lands and primary infrastructure to alleviate the burden of critical element of housing cost to enable affordable houses. He further said that the UPDC procured two contiguous lands that cover a total of 11.7hectares in the Apo Duste area.
He added that an estate that will consist of “242 housing units with the following variants; five bedroom detached houses, four bedroom semi-detached houses, four bedroom terraces, three bedroom bungalows, two and three bedroom flats, family swimming pool, children play ground, shopping arcade, soft landscape, ample parking lots for residents and visitors, event hall, borehole and water treatment plant, sewage treatment plant, alternative power supply, will be built on the land,” and the target completion for the whole estate is December, 2014.
Oguniren said that,“All over the world, we have been able to achieve a reasonable level of social housing; it is usually a combination of several people working together; the government, the private sector, the finance sector and so on.” He further urged investors to invest in Metro City project and he? tasked the government to create a special window for permitting and approval for social housing to reduce the cost, time and burden of the developer.