National mortgage policy will solve housing deficit – El-Rufai

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, says for Nigeria to solve its housing deficit, it requires a favourable mortgage policy.

el-Rufai made this disclosure on Saturday shortly after the inauguration of the Gombe Geographic Information Systems Service Centre, and performing the groundbreaking of 550 Shongo Homes and Gardens under the Family Homes Fund in Gombe State.

According to the Kaduna State governor, the housing deficit stands at about 18 million, stressing that it was not sustainable to sell houses between N10m and N50m.

He disclosed that the mortgage system would enable buyers to pay in 25 years’ time, stressing that the incoming administration under President-elect Bola Tinubu would ensure single-digit interest between 15- 20 years.

He said, “The steps taken by Gombe are the right steps, which is partnering with the private sector and other investors to build houses. But the problem of the housing deficit will never be addressed until we have a national mortgage system. People cannot buy houses by paying N10m-N50m at a go. “No one does that at a go. We need to design a system that enables people to buy houses and pay in 25 years at interest low rates. That means we need a national mortgage system.

“The administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has already promised that they will come up with a national mortgage system single digit interest, 15 to 20 years repayment and we are looking for to it. It is not impossible to do. I did it in the FCT when we sold 32,000 Federal Government houses but it only worked in the FCT. It was not scaled up nationally. I think the time has come to scale it up nationally. Once, you do that builders know as soon as they build the house it will be sold tomorrow is how to reduce the housing deficit which stands at about 18 million houses.”

Speaking further, el-Rufai expressed optimism that states would be given the needed opportunity to operate, adding that states should devise means to survive without Federal Account Allocation Committee.

“Our hope is that the incoming administration under President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will support the states, even more, to take their states into their own hands.

“For us as states defending on Federation Account Allocation is not the way to go. We must find a way to be independent from the FAAC and the only way to do so is to explore sources of revenue generation in our states. And we can only do so if we have invested in the right infrastructure, attract the right investment and ensure that our land administration and tax administration are perfect, which is a sine qua non.

“The Federal Government can assist provide land and we are lucky that a former governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will be the president and knows what we are concerned about to give states more authority, and revenue because that is how Nigeria will progress,” he said.

On his part, the Director-General of GOGIS, Kabiru Hassan, said the organisation had moved from the implementation of the project and the transition from a manual to a digital system.

He said, “Some of our notable achievements are securing digital Certificates of Occupancy, digitising over 22,000 manual land files out of the 27,000 we have in our records.

“Moreover, to enable the agency check mate layout distortions, we digitised 52 layouts, regularised about 12,000 customary titles to statutory titles and captured over 1,500 customary plots into our database through an electronically driven process in an effort to tackle cases of missing files, double allocation, and creation of infilled plots.”