FG targets off-takers for N667m housing scheme in Lagos

Contributors to the National Housing Fund (NHF) may soon heave a sigh of relief as the Federal Government is set to deliver 112 units of one and two bedroom flats in Sedona estate in the Ikorodu axis of Lagos State.
 
The N667 million project is a ministerial pilot housing scheme that has been conceived in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), to increase the housing stocks in the country.

The Ministry provided land for the project, while the bank provided the finance. Sedona estate is located in a conspicuous location of Igbogbo,
Ikorodu.

Frontline Abuja-based construction firm; Sedona Business

Consult Limited constructed the estate. The project features; 48 blocks of one-bedroom and 64 two-bedroom flats. 

Government has put in place facilities such as; power supply, water and security of the subscribers while modalities has been worked out for improved landscaping of the environment.
 
The Managing Director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Ahmed Dangiwa explained that the estate is one of the completed projects that have been abandoned. He emphasised that government is resuscitating it with immediate effect.
 
Dangiwa made this known when he led the new chairman, board of directors of the bank, Dr. Adewale Adeeyo and other executives to inspect the project in Ikorodu. Dangiwa expressed satisfaction with the quality of works delivered by the contractor.
 
He said: “We are here as a form of pre-commission visit to the project site”.

The project was conceived since 2012, now it has been completed and will soon be commissioned. 

This is not an inferior project, it is structurally sound, the floors are tiled, the windows are aluminum slide windows and the ceilings are of standard.

“We are satisfied with the quality of job to the extent of what we have seen, though the project should have been completed earlier than now but we are happy that it is completed and will soon be put to use by off-takers”.
 
According to him, FMBN under the NHF has a target, which is the low and medium income earners who are the contributors to the fund, noting that the flats would be given out to the off-takers at a price, which they would be able to afford.

“The major thing is affordability. We are concerned about the exteriors of the property; to ensure that we secure it properly and make sure that it is well landscaped.

We are also considering what we will do to improve the environment because we don’t want any form of encroachment from the neighbourhood.

We planned to fence it so that the inhabitants will be secured ”.
   
He stated that the NHF has created about N18 billion mortgages since its inception and housing stock has increased to more than 20,000 in the country. He said that the estate is one of its interventions for the low-income earners.

“By the time you leave the off takers to the developers, they wouldn’t be able to afford some houses the developers will build, they would double the prices and the cost of building a house is huge.

Some developers usually build houses to get between 20 or 25per cent cost of funding added up to the cost of building and the cost of the infrastructure which could be about 30per cent, they would add it up and even the cost of the land.

“But in this project, the ministry gave us the land for free and the cost of funding is very minimal, which is 10 per cent to the developer.

This is to reduce the cost of the housing and make it affordable to the NHF contributors and that is the essence of the collaboration”, he explained.
 
According to him, the project was sited in Ikorodu for residents to benefit from the interventions of the Federal government in housing through the FMBN in increasing the number of housing in the country.
 
Dangiwa who is also an architect stated that the bank is synergizing with the labour unions in the country to create home designs that are of high quality for the people especially workers that fall within the low-income cadre.