TheCable

Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works, and housing, has said 2,736 housing units were being built by the federal government in 33 states.

According to Fashola, the ongoing construction is the pilot-phase of the federal government’s national housing programme.

Speaking on Thursday at the sixth edition of the national council on land, housing and urban development in Abuja, he said: “I am pleased to report that construction has started in 33 states where land has been made available.

“This is in fulfillment of another commitment made at last year’s council by at least 90 per cent. This must give a lot of hope to our people that this government will do what it says, and I want to thank all the states who gave us land.

“While our national housing programme, is the first of its type on a national scale in many decades that seeks to respond to the deficit, government agencies such as the Federal Mortgage Bank, Federal Housing Authority are being repositioned to play their role more effectively to address the housing problem.

“For example, the Federal Housing Authority has been mandated by the ministry to reposition herself to be one of our champions of housing delivery based on her previous track record. Similarly, the Federal Mortgage Bank continues to deepen participation in the National Housing Fund which forms a reliable pool of funding from which she lends money to contributors by way of mortgage loans to acquire houses.

“In addition, the bank has granted loans to estate developers to build houses; and from their recent report to me, they currently have 3,823 housing units available for sale in various states of the federation.”

Fashola added that 54,680 jobs had been created while 653 contractors were engaged to build the housing units.