Rivers seeks partnership with FHA to deliver affordable housing
Rivers State is seeking for partnership with the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to provide affordable houses for Nigerians, Governor Nyesom Wike said.
The governor stated that his administration was ready to partner the federal agency to ensure that the people of the state had access to affordable housing.
He said such partnership would involve ensuring that the Federal Housing Authority was given access to land to commence immediate construction of houses.
Meanwhile, Mohammed Al-Amin, managing director of FHA, has appealed to the Rivers governor to allocate more lands to the authority, as well as intervene in ground rents and accusation fees charged the authority.
But Governor Wike has asked that the FHA must sign an undertaking that it would actually develop lands allocated to it within one year, failure which the Rivers government would retake the said allotted lands.
All this is happening at a time the Port Harcourt property is awash with many unoccupied/sold houses built by some private developers under PPP [public private participation] arrangements, due to the present economic crunch. Most potential house-owners do not have the wherewithal to procure the houses.
Governor Wike has, however, directed the management of the Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority (GPHCDA), a state agency saddled with the responsibility of developing a new Port Harcourt city, as well the State Ministry of Housing to liaise with the FHA to develop a framework for affordable housing.
He said state governments find it difficult to allocate plots of land to the Federal Housing Authority because lands allocated are allowed to stay fallow for many years, without any developments on them.
“I have directed the Greater Port Harcourt City Development Authority in conjunction with the State Ministry of Housing to discuss with the Federal Housing Authority on how to develop a framework for the joint development of affordable housing,” said Wike.
He said, “We are proposing that the Federal Housing Authority sign an undertaking that should they fail to use the parcels of land allocated within one year, we shall repossess same.”
The FHA managing director, Al-Amin noted that the essence of his visit to Rivers State was in furtherance of a directive of the Minister of Power, Works and Housing to the Federal Housing Authority and Federal Mortgage Bank to use lands owned by the FHA across the country with the resources of the Federal Mortgage Bank, and invest and deliver housings.
He said Rivers State was among the first states slated to benefit from the programme; disclosing that the FHA has been restructured into Commercial and Social Departments, with a view to making housing a tool for development.