Follow Us on Google
By Maduka Nweke
The Federal Government says it has commenced the 20,000 affordable mass housing project tagged: ‘‘Renewed Hope Cities and Estates’’ on Eric Moore street, Surulere, Lagos.
The project seeks to provide 100,000 affordable mass housing to Nigerians across the country.
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Markus Ogunbiyi, made the announcement while inspecting ongoing housing projects and government land available for additional construction under the scheme, recently.
The Permanent Secretary began the inspection with various parcels of land belonging to the Ministry at Census Close in the highbrow area of Surulere. Ogunbiyi accompanied by the Federal Controller of Housing, Lagos State, Mrs. Margaret Adejobi, and other top directors, later inspected the ongoing 60 flats of two and three bedroom units project in Eric Moore. The team which included the Head of PPP Unit of the ministry, Abimbola Asein, later inspected land within Games Village in Eric Moore and land at Iponri area. The Permanent Secretary told Daily Sun that President Bola Tinubu launched the pilot scheme of the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates in Abuja last week with construction of 3,112 housing projects.
Ogunbiyi said the visit to Lagos was to build on that achievement which marks the beginning of the project in the state. He said the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development was undertaking the project under Public-Private Partnership, saying that the target was 100,000 housing units nationwide with Lagos State having over 20,000.
He said Lagos State had problem of scarcity of land, hence a new strategy of identifying and using all land belonging to the ministry in the city to construct the houses.
He said negotiations were ongoing with the Lagos State Government on how they could provide land but while that was on, the ministry was utilizing all its existing land. President Tinubu had vowed to turn the entire nation into construction sites for decent affordable mass housing, a feat that had already begun. He said the private sector in Lagos were all ready and had swung into action, he said.
“Last week, we had a groundbreaking in Abuja by the President on our Renewed Hope Cities and Estates. So this is a consolidating visit to Lagos on that particular achievement. The challenge we have in Lagos is land and that is why I am here. We will use all available land to make sure that we have enough housing units under the first phase in Lagos,” he said.
When asked when the Renewed Hope City and Estates project will take off in earnest in Lagos, he said, “We have started in Lagos, we already have the PPP and everything is going on well”.
The permanent secretary said that he would use the two days inspection in Lagos State to ensure additional projects take off in less than a month.
