Town Planners Get Support On Housing Proposal

The  call by the Nigerian Institute of Town  Planning (NITP), Rivers State branch urging professional groups and associations to pool their resources for acquisition of property and development  for their members, has received  more support  from other  professionals.

Responding to NITP’s call as a way of boosting the housing stock in Port Harcourt and its environs, an economist  working with one of the Rivers State government agency said that  time had come when  workers begin to  put themselves  together to own their  own estates instead of waiting on government.

According to Nnamdi, “Government alone cannot address the  shortage in supply of houses, and the result of continuous waiting  on government over the years have resulted  to increase  in demand for  homes with increasing cost of rent, while the supply dwindles”.

To this end, he urged workers in various establishments to take  the bull by the  horn and pool their  resources together and acquire  land which will be owned by them.

On his part, a cleric who spoke  with The Tide on this matter; Pastor Awaji Cletus said the idea began advanced by the NITP is an ideal  one  that  needs to be put to work, pointing out that  such will address the housing  challenge if put to work in the near future.

Pastor Cletus who is a specialist in management  opined that one major factor  that had kept many public workers from owning houses, is the ability to gather money in bulk to acquire  land.

He said with the idea where workers of the same establishment take a bond either from their  establishment to acquire just the land which the members of the group will  be made to  pay back through monthly  deductions from their salaries, kick-starts the issue of home ownership.

According to him “individuals within such workers group will between two and three years begin to develop their properties, depending on the size of their land”.

It would be recalled that the chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planning (NITP) Rivers State, Mr. Ikiriko Opiriba in a chat with The Tide recently had urged workers groups and professional associations  not to wait any longer for government to provide houses for them, but that they could pool resources to acquire land for themselves and  called on government to assist in provision of infrastructure for habitation.