The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) will build 400 units
of houses every year to close the housing deficit and provide affordable
accommodation for its workforce.
The FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello made this disclosure Tuesday
while receiving the Head of Service of the Federation, Ms. Winifred Ekanem
Oyo-Ita, in his office, at Area 11, Garki I District, Abuja.
The Minister said that substantial amount of money has already been
provided in the FCT 2016 statutory budget to immediately commence this
project, which he reiterated is dear to his heart to improve the welfare
of the workers.
Malam Bello, who admitted that he assumed office with the erroneous
impression that all workers of the FCT Administration were landlords,
remarked that he was shocked to realize that most of the staff, especially
those at the middle and junior level had no houses of their own.
According to him, “before I was appointed Minister, I had the impression
that everybody in the FCTA was also a landlord. But to my surprise, I
realized that a number of the staff, particularly those in the middle
level and junior cadre do not own properties in the city”.
His words: “Some of them have worked here for so many years, processing
land applications, processing files, giving approvals, providing services,
but they have been tenants in this city. Some of them never had the
opportunity of occupying the houses that were sold some years back.”
While responding to a request by the Head of Service to provide suitable
land for mass housing projects for all civil servants in the Territory
under Federal Integrated Staff Housing Scheme (FISH), which the FCTA was
equally a partner, the Minister assured that his Administration was ready
to partner with the service to achieve this objective, even if it means
retrieving lands that it had previously allocated to other government
institutions.
“With respect to this particular programme, I assure you we will try to
identify and locate land in areas where you will build and deliver the
houses at the rate you have mentioned, so that the houses can be occupied
immediately,” Malam Bello emphasized.
The Minister added, “even if it means we have to look at existing
allocations that have not been utilized, especially if they were
allocations made to government agencies, then I think we will have to
recover them and bring them all under your office under this new project
so that we will be able to have them successfully executed the way they
were meant to be from the very beginning”.
Malam Bello, while lamenting that pockets of houses were built in the past
without proper linkage with the city centre in terms of access road, power
lines, water lines and sewage, said the FCTA has concluded plans to revamp
its mass housing programme to make it more inclusive and responsive to the
requirements of Nigerians, especially the civil servants.
The Minister who noted that some of these mass housing have not been
occupied despite having gulped so much investments, said the new system of
mass housing that is being designed will be done in such a way that all
these developments go hand in hand to provide the needed facilities.
Earlier in her remarks, the Head of Service of the federation, Ms.
Winifred Ekanem Oyo-Ita said the issue of housing and accommodation for
civil servants has become a very big challenge.
She recalled that since the year 2001 when the monetization policy was
implemented, only the first few crop of civil servants who were occupiers
of official quarters at that time had the good fortune of being able to
take over their houses with some assistance through the banks.
Since then, she stated, no other group of civil servants has had this good
fortune, except those who were able to have an arrangement with private
developers; adding that the rest have been left to operate through
landlords with all the attendant stress that goes with it.
The Head of Service called on the Minister to allocate good piece of land
that would be used to develop housing estates as well as to provide site
and services and other infrastructural needs that are very paramount to
the successful development of these housing estates for civil servants
under the FISH programme.
Her words: “The whole purpose of the FISH programme is to bring the
expertise and the mandate of different Ministries and government agencies
to provide affordable houses for Civil Servants. We plan to also work with
private developers.”
“Every year, we should be able to set up some units of houses which our
civil servants can acquire,” she stressed.
The FCT Permanent Secretary, Dr. Babatope Ajakaiye as well as two other
Permanent Secretaries in the office of the Head of Service also attended
the meeting.