Four thousand, two hundred and nineteen housing units under the Lagos State Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme in 12 locations across the state will be allocated before the end of the year.

Governor Babatunde Fashola made the disclosure recently, while rendering account of his stewardship in the last six years on a live television programme.

According to him, the houses are located in Sangotedo with 540 units; Ogba, 270 units; Shitta, 36 units; Ilupeju, 60 units; Mushin, 73 units; and Agbowa Phases 1 and 2, 660 units.

He said others currently ongoing included 540 units at the Ajara Housing Estate; Ibeshe Housing Scheme, 720 units; Iponri, 144 units; Oyingbo Phases 1 and 2,48 and 120 units, respectively; and Badia in Ijora, 1,008 units.

Fashola said allocations would be made through public raffle draws that would ensure that those who regularly paid their taxes would be among the beneficiaries.

He said, “We are almost done. What we are trying to avoid first is the need for anybody, any member of the public, to be a relation or friend of any member of people in government in order to get a house. We want to eliminate that.

“We have prepared forms, we have set up a Lagos Mortgage Board, we are recapitalising Lagos Building and Investment Company to give mortgages, we have set up arbitration rules and we have gone through the mortgage document. We have prepared the draw rules; it is going to happen by draws, which will be made public.

“We have set guidelines for those who will be eligible, those who pay their taxes; so, it will not do to rush to go and pay the tax overnight because we built it with taxpayers’ money.  We expect that it is only fair that those who have been paying faithfully must get priority for something at this point.”

The governor said winners of the houses would be able to pay over a period of 10 years after parting with 30 per cent of the value of the houses as equity.

“Affordability is that we will not ask you to pay cash once and for all. The sense of affordability is that, as I have always said, there is no low cost cement sold to government, there is no low cost iron rod. We borrow at the same interest rate, our contractors charge us the import duties and all of the cost attendants of bringing in the raw materials to build the houses,” he said.

Speaking on flooding, the governor said residents of the state must begin to accept the situation of perennial flooding as a natural phenomenon, which they must live with as the state was below sea level, urging everyone to make adequate preparation for the rainy season.

Fashola said, “One good way to explain this, because we, perhaps, don’t understand sufficiently or don’t accept our situation that we are living below sea level, is that we are living inside water, and to keep this city dry and to keep the water flowing, it is just a feat of engineering, which first the credit must go to my predecessors for all of what they have done and the current generation of the team that I work with, for what we are adding onto it.

“When the rain is intense, the capacity of our drains, as the hand basin, to flush off everything at the same time, is certainly not there because it is going into the lagoon, but the lagoon is also filling up as the land is filling up. As soon as the rain subsides, the hydraulic activity takes over; so, within a few hours, it is gone.”