TheCable

Through International recruitment firm – PriceWaterHouse Coopers, the Family Homes Funds has launched a recruitment campaign to secure top quality capacity to deliver an ambitious. affordable housing programme as a key aspect of the Government’s Social Intervention Programme.

By 2023, the Family Homes Funds – a special purpose investment vehicle having the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority and the Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated as founding shareholders – aims to have supported the development of over 500,000 homes and 1.5m jobs for Nigerians on low income.

Towards that goal, the Funds has recently completed the construction of 400 homes with an average cost of N3.5m in Grand Luvu, Nasarawa State – part of over 4,000 homes under construction in 5 states namely Ogun, Nasarawa, Kano, Delta and Kaduna. A further 30,000 homes are at advanced stages of negotiation with development partners and will commence by November 2018. As the new company builds capacity through the ongoing recruitment campaign, it will achieve a program of 80,000 homes by December 2019.

Creation of new jobs is a critical element of the Funds programme. Ongoing investments are already making a real difference with over 13,000 jobs created and about 360,000 to be created from current development pipeline.The Grand Luvu Project in Nasarawa State has created about 8000 jobs.

26-year-old Kabiru Usman has been unemployed since graduation from Nasarawa State University. He was employed and obtained training on the Funds Grand Luvu project. He has now acquired valuable skills with guaranteed long term employment and income to support his young family. So also has Hassan Ladan, an unskilled and unemployed youth who has had to depend on his family for handouts until he was employed as a mason on the project site.

In Kaduna, the Millennium City Project has directly engaged slightly over 200 persons which includes local artisans in carpenters, brick layers etc. Yusuf Ishaq an unemployed itinerant bricklayer now has a stable source of income at the Kaduna Construction, so also does Abubakar Sidi, a Carpenter who has had to relocate to the site area because of the job stability that the project offers.

The story is no different for Abu Imtiaz, a graduate of Accounting from Kaduna Polytechnic, who before now wasn’t employed, but is now engaged as an accountant on site

According to officials of the Fund “…Our focus is to create homes that people, particularly those on low income can afford but beyond that, ensure that we provide opportunity for them to earn decent wages consistently through our investment in these projects. We have spent the last 9months building very strong foundations for a major take off and now we should start seeing the results…..affordable homes and jobs for local people.”