Developer urges FG to address housing deficit

The federal government has been urged to address the lingering housing deficit in the country by ensuring enabling laws and environment for private estate firms to thrive.

Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Nuel Osilama Global Investment Limited, Emmanuel Osilama, gave the advice in an interview on Sunday in Abuja.

Osilama, an estate developer, said the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, must develop a workable template that would crash the present high cost of houses.

He explained that the government can realistically achieve the provision of affordable houses for all, if it works in collaboration with the National Association of Real Estate Developers.

He said that no country has succeeded in housing its population without collaborative efforts with housing professionals and the banking sector.

According to him, shelter being a necessity of life like food and clothing must be addressed as quickly as possible for the citizens to have life.

Osilama said the first approach to liberalizing the sector was to review the Land Use Act 1978, which has inhibited the housing business sector in the country.

He said the Act has for many years made it difficult for private developers to easily access land from the overseeing authorities in states and the federal level.

Osilama was of the view that the Act places so much powers on original owners of land, adding that these owners were at all time prepared to torment developers with astronomic compensation, which invariably would be transferred to the unit cost of houses.

“If the law can be amended to make developers easily access estate land direct from the authorities instead of through land speculators as with present experience, the cost of building houses will crash significantly,” he asserted.