FG disputes 22m housing deficit figure

The federal government, Thursday, disputed various housing deficit figures being branded about the country and asked its promoters to come out with the report of the survey they conducted in that regard.

The Managing Director, Shelter-Afrique, Andrew Chimphondah had in his presentation at the one-day sensitization forum on land, housing and urban development multilateral programme of collaboration and 10th session of the world urban forum (WUF10) held in Abuja, said Nigeria has a 22 million housing deficit.

The theme of the programme was: “Achieving national housing and urban development: opportunities for partnership and collaboration’’.

Chimphondah, whose presentation was titled: “Housing Development and financing options’’, said out of 57million housing deficit in Africa, Nigeria has an annual deficit of 22million.

To address this, he said at least, 700,000 housing units are required going by the growing population and urban migration.

Chimphondah, who said to date, his company had approved investments worth $181million in favour of the Nigerian counterparties, advocated public-private-partnership as solution to the huge housing deficits in the country.

But as soon as he finished his presentation, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Muhammed Bukar, asked Chimphondah, how he arrived at the 22 million housing deficit.

Bukar said if there is any survey conducted on the housing deficit, the ministry was ready to adopt and document it for further work.

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