Reps pledge to address Nigeria’s housing deficit

The House Committee on Housing and Habitat says it will review the National Housing Fund (NHF) Act to address housing deficit in the country.

Chairman of the committee, Rep. Mustapha Dawaki said this during the inaugural meeting of the committee on Tuesday in Abuja.

The Federal Government put the country’s housing deficit at 22 million in 2018 against the statistics of 17 million in 2017.

“We have housing deficit in Nigeria. It is only in Nigeria that you see someone who has been working and does not have a roof over his head.

“It is the work of the committee to make sure that this is corrected, even if it is the housing act that has problem, it should be revisited and see how we can make some amendments.

“This is to ensure that those that really sacrifice their entire lives working for the country and in other sectors of the economy, at the end of the day, have roofs over their heads,” he said.

Dawaki said that the committee would work towards making funds contributed to the NHF substantial enough for citizens to own houses.

“That is why the NHF Act should be revisited to ensure that what is deducted from employees and employers’ contribution should also be a substantial amount.

“At the end of the day, when you want to acquire a house, plus the mortgage that the Federal Mortgage Bank will give, it should be able to get you a two or three bedroom apartment owned by you,” he said.

In a related development, House Committee on Ecological Fund said the National Assembly would work with the Executive to ensure effective and efficient utilisation of the Ecological Funds by the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country.

The chairman of the committee Rep. Isiaka Ibrahim, said that the committee would develop an approach to address ecological disasters in the country.
“Many states have been confronted lately by flood with great proportions of loss of lives and property.

“We shall soon introduce our concept of cultural ecology as an integrative approach, with the ambition to support efforts of the government on various engineering approaches as well as the public.”

Ibrahim said that the committee was mandated, among others, to initiate policies needed to address ecological challenges and promote such policies.

Meanwhile, the House Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity was expected to hold an interactive session with Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress to intervene in the proposed nationwide strike.

The meeting, however, did not hold following a letter from the NLC, read by the chairman, Mohammed Wudil (Kano-APC), explaining the meeting could not hold due to another meeting with federal government.

“The committee is going to mediate to call NLC to hear from their side and and also to call the ministry to hear from their own side.”

The NLC had asked state councils to prepare for indefinite strike by Oct. 16 if federal government failed to accept its demands on the adjustments of salaries as a result of the new minimum wage.