50,000 cooperative members show interest in FHA scheme

The Federal Housing Authority says about 50,000 members belonging to 800 cooperative societies nationwide have indicated interest in its social and cooperative housing programme.

The FHA’s Managing Director, Prof. Mohammed Al-Amin, said many of the cooperatives came on their own upon knowing about the social and cooperative housing scheme.

It said in a statement that the FHA was deliberately cultivating cooperatives in various parts of the country so as to strengthen them to tap into the programme.

Al-Amin was quoted as saying that financially weak members of cooperative societies could latch onto the strength of the group to make their homeownership dreams come true.

“The authority is focusing on housing delivery for the most vulnerable groups in the society comprising the no-income, low-income and middle low-income earners. To that end, the FHA has developed special packages in collaboration with non-governmental, faith-based and community-based organisations,” he said.

He added that the FHA was also working with research institutes for the development of local materials for the construction of houses.

He said, “In the effort towards making housing available, accessible and affordable, the FHA will provide primary infrastructure in its estates while also aiming as expandable housing intervention.

“Such intervention is aimed at building the minimum housing unit on a plot of land for prospective homeowners to occupy while they will embark on gradual expansion as their incomes improve.”

He said the FHA was also initiating a savers’ scheme, which would enable workers in the formal and non-formal sectors of the economy to own their houses.

Al-Amin added that the authority was working with state governments towards the implementation of a rent-to-own housing scheme, which would convert rents paid by tenants to the eventual ownership of such houses.

According to him, the preference of many Nigerians for bogus housing designs was one of the major impediments to homeownership, adding that the FHA would embark on a campaign to get people to moderate such tastes.

Al-Amin identified the lack of housing finance for off-takers, poor conceptualisation and haphazard land acquisition processes as the major causes of the collapse of the National Housing Programmes.

He said the FHA, conscious of these problems, was mobilising all stakeholders to ensure the success of its housing programmes.

Al-Amin, who was also part of the management team of the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development that recently briefed President Muhammadu Buhari on the state of affairs in the housing sector, said the President was passionate about the delivery of affordable mass housing for Nigerians and the rehabilitation of houses destroyed by insurgents in the North-East.

He added that the President had requested for a viable road map for the implementation of social housing for the masses.

Source: Punch Newspaper.