Housing Deficit: Surveyor Wants Govt’s Incentives

The  Chairman, Lagos Branch of Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Mr Olayemi Shonubi, last week called on government to provide incentives to private sector to address Nigeria’s high housing deficit.

Shonubi said  in Lagos that the Federal Government should give more incentives to the private sector to multiply their investments in the housing sector.

“If the private sector is well motivated, this nation’s housing deficit of over 16 million will drastically reduce,“ he said.

According to him, the government alone cannot obviously solve the challenges confronting her housing needs.

He said that the private sector had been the major instigator of growth in the building industry globally.

“Our government should encourage the private developers to go into large-scale housing development and also assist them to buy building materials cheaply.

“The private sector can drive growth more rapidly and can also help to subsidise rents to enable the poor to have access to own their homes in the long run.

“For large-scale housing development to be achievable here, the private sector needs to be fully integrated into the scheme of things.

“I expect our target to be that the masses will not pay more than 10 per cent of their annual income as rent,“ Shonubi said.

He said that shortage of accommodation was the cause of the high rate of crimes and social misdemeanors in the country.

Shonubi said that a decent house was not a privilege and that government owed it a duty to provide its citizens with conducive and clean accommodation.

He said that constant review of housing polices and lack of access to mortgage facilities were part of problems affecting the growth of the sector.