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…As Senate orders suspension of N309bn electricity bond
From Basil Obasi and Fred Itua, Abuja
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the Federal Government is working with stakeholders to raise N1trillion to provide affordable housing for Nigerians.
Osinbajo disclosed this Tuesday at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja where he chaired a Roundtable on Job Creation, Skills and Employment.
According to him, the proposed project would also help create jobs. He explained that the job creation unit in his office had worked out a framework with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) to focus on three sectors to create employment.
He listed the three sectors as construction, agriculture as well as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Under Construction sector, the vice-president said the Federal Government was trying to work on a social housing programme called the Family Home Fund.
“The Family Home Fund is a financial intervention in social housing in the country.
“We are trying to raise a fund which will come to about N1 trillion. We have aggregated fund from the private sector, local and international funds already.
“The whole idea is to be able to intervene in mortgage financing so that developers can build special houses to the specification of the Federal Government.
“Already eight or nine states are giving land and Certificate of Occupancy for social housing scheme.
“The idea is that any Nigerian who can afford N30,000 should be able to own a house,’’ he said.
Osinbajo said that there would emerge job creation opportunities as technicians, engineers and skilled workers would benefit from the scheme.
He said there would also be training opportunity from the scheme.
The problem of housing in Nigeria has been of interest to every administration and official estimates suggest that more than 17 million houses are needed to cover the country’s 180 million citizens.
Each administration has introduced a different scheme but the impact is not felt by the people.
Meanwhile, the Senate, yesterday, ordered the Federal Government to stop the proposed sale of bonds worth N309 billion to finance the shortfall in the Nigerian electricity market.
The motion was sponsored by Mustapha Bukar, who is the Senator representing President Muhammadu Buhari in the Nigerian Senate.
Adopting the resolutions of the motion, the Senate urged the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to immediately halt the raising of the bonds by Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET).
It also resolved and mandated the committees on Power and Privatization to investigate the post-privatization performance of the All players in the power sector in line with their performance agreement including the management and disbursement of any loans or bonds of the sector agencies.
Senator Bukar said in his motion that the planned borrowing was being muted, despite interventions by the government, such as the bailout by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in March, 2015 to the tune of N213 billion through the Nigeria Electricity Sector Intervention (NESI).
He further noted that the shortfall has continued to escalate at the rate of about N15 billion per month which is equivalent to N500 million daily. He said the total shortfall as at December 31st, 2015, stood at N400 billion.
“Continued incidence of market shortfall is a disincentive for new investors to venture their Nigerian electricity market. This implies that the projected generating capacity is an illusion. As a matter of fact, any increment in generating capacity would further aggravate and escalate the market shortfall,” he added.
Senator Bukar argued that the issuance of bonds will amount to not only spoon-feeding the operators in spite of their inefficiency, but at great cost to Nigerians as the risk of default would cause the crystallization of the Federal Government Sovereign Guarantee and lead to national energy crisis in the future.
