Nigeria’s social housing scheme has been boosted with donation of over 2,000 hectares by 24 states in the country.
Spokesman to the vice president, Laolu Akand said in a release on Sunday that 17 States have also indicated interest to participate in the Solar Power programme.
Both programnes are components of the Nigeria’s Economic Sustainability Plan, ESP.
Akande said in the release that “agreement has now been reached with at least one major cement manufacturer in the country to sell at significantly discounted prices as low as N2600 per bag of cement for the social housing projects.
“This was after a meeting the Vice President held with three major cement manufacturers in the country namely Dangote Cement, Bua Cement and Lafarge Cement manufacturers.”
He said these were some of the highlights that emergwd from a review meeting on the Economic Sustainability Plan implementation presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa over the weekend.
According to Akande, Prof. Osinbajo commented on the implementation of components of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), assuring that government will continue to focus on creating more jobs while improving access to power and affordable housing for majority of Nigerians.
“Highlighting the progress so far, the Vice President assured that the Federal Government will ramp up efforts to so more Nigerians have access to electricity and affordable housing.
“According to the presentation made by the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Alhaji Ahmad Salihijo, the Solar Power Naija team has had engagements with the 6 states who have identified private sector developers.
“The team has also selected Akwa Ibom, Ekiti and Kano as pilot states for the state-guaranteed transaction model for the solar power programme.
“He explained that REA is currently tracking transactions worth N55 billion potentially contributing the first two million connections in Nigeria and providing thousands of jobs.
“For instance, the programme is currently tracking four transactions in the commercial bank upstream channel contributing 3,500 jobs and 100,000 connections.
“The MD added that 9 participants have submitted applications for over N4 billion of the N20 billion allocated with three companies close to receiving disbursements.”
Akande said that managing director reported that Bleu Camel Energy with a loan amount of N3 billion is targeting to create 600 jobs.
“Sunking, another investor with a loan amount of N3 billion will create 1,500 jobs; Auxno Solar with N300 million loan amount targets 100 jobs while Emerald Industrial Co. is seeking N3 billion funding to manufacture 100,000 Solar Home Systems and smart meters.
“On the other hand but in the same vein, the Managing Director/CEO of the Family Homes Fund Limited (FHFL) – the implementing agency for the Social Housing scheme, Mr. Femi Adewole, stated that 17,584 units across 16 locations are now on the pipeline.”
He said the company was having a successful push in assembling land to feed the housing construction, stating that so far about 2156.4ha have been assembled ready for development.
He further stated thay this has the capacity to accommodate about 65,000 homes.
Adewole said that under the ESP Social Housing programme, Nigerians would be given at least a 15-year period with a monthly payment at six percent interest rate to pay for each housing unit.
Under the Social Housing Programme, the Federal Government plans to support 1.5 million Nigerians to acquire low-cost houses through mortgage options and also Rent to Own option.
The scheme is expected to also generate 1.8 million jobs and deliver houses to about 1.5 million Nigerian families.
The houses are to be priced around and about N2m and N4m each putting it within the reach of the low-income earners, depending on the number of rooms. There are one, two and three bedrooms options.
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