By Ben Atonko & Oby Echeburu
Mr Geoffrey Tabansi is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV). He retired few years ago as Director of Lands in the former Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development which is now part of the amalgamated Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing after putting 32 years in service. He represented the ministry on many committees in the course of land administration. Tabansi was part of the team that reviewed the housing policy of urban planning and headed the team that produced the draft of the National Land Policy that is yet to be published. The estate surveyor and valuer also headed the business committee of the ministry which is the Public Private Partnership (PPP) that was focused on housing production by the private sector. Speaking with Viewpoint Housing News in Abuja, Tabansi stated that the one million housing units per annum promise by President Muhammadu Buhari has not been kept in the last four years because of the merger of the ministries and disregard for the National Housing Policy. Government needs to build the enabling environment for private developers to build houses, he stated, maintaining that government has no business directly building houses.
Viewpoint: From what the ministry used to be before the amalgamation and what it is now, what is the difference?
Tabansi: Well, at the time I left the ministry, it was an independent ministry focusing primarily on housing, land administration and urban management. And it was a big business because these are critical areas of developmental sectors that have to do with the acquisition of lands, the designs and all of that.
But now, having been merged with Power and Works, you can see that difference because Power and Works are big sectors faced with tasks like the development of roads and so on. Joining housing sector that is crying for attention, given the fact that the populace has no decent accommodation is an issue. If you listen to commentaries, you hear housing deficit in millions and yet housing hasn’t been given the best attention it requires.
Viewpoint: Did this merger take away the budgets for the various sectors? Does it take away what were formerly budgeted?
Tabansi: As a matter of fact, to be fair to President Muhammadu Buhari, his administration, his budget for housing is far more than what we have had in recent times.
But the merger does not give the ministry enough time to concentrate on power, works and housing. So the budget was there but the critical problem they had was the ministry to have forgotten the acts/efforts. In 2012, the nation was given the National Housing Policy and the focus of that policy was that the private sector should step in while the government creates enabling environment — that was the main reason PPP was developed at different levels.
In 2014, the ministry went ahead to prepare a document, roadmap on housing, land administration and urban development, stretching that roadmap to 2043 and the resources that would be required and the targets that would be met at each stage of the milestones — were all there but the current administration left it and went back to what happened in 1983 under Shehu Shagari by way of doing direct construction.
The policy of 2012 reviewed all the efforts of housing and concluded that the government has no business doing direct construction on housing. That huge budget given to housing, if they had followed the policy and used that money to create enabling environment such as acquiring lands, making them habitable, then accepting private developers to partner with government to produce houses, they would have done better.
But presently, what have they done? I haven’t seen or heard of anywhere houses were commissioned — yet the budget has been spent. If they had kept to the policy of 2012 and looked at the roadmap of 2014 and followed it, along the line we would have seen results because the private sector would have brought private capital and then the budget would have given the ministry opportunity to create enabling environment — making lands available and possibly, equally looking into mortgage systems. That would have aided in the production of houses, by reason of creating enabling environment thus would assist the government to tinker on the prices of houses to be more affordable.
Viewpoint: Can we therefore, say that Buhari government’s one million housing units per annum target hasn’t been met?
Tabansi: Of course! Are you not a Nigerian? Where are the houses this government has built in the last four years? The much you see around are efforts of the private sector and because they go alone from the acquisition of land to the provision of infrastructure within the estate, the houses can never be affordable.
If one can get loan for construction at that high rate and make a profit which is the target of every businessman, and at the same time make the houses affordable…
Viewpoint: Have you forgotten that some private developers have been blacklisted? Many of them have taken loans from the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and have failed to exit those loans.
Tabansi: That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t try again. All it means is that FMBN and mortgage institutions will continue to evolve a system that will enable them test, that’s if they are not doing favoritism when giving loans.
Oftentimes, criteria for loans are set up, but do they allow them to be met before disbursing the loans? The truth is that if a system is not built on merit then things will fail. Without mortgage, the act of delivering affordable housing will be impossible.
Viewpoint: What do you advise this government to do in the face of all this?
Tabansi: The administration needs to go back to the ministry that was there before they came into power and that is the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development so that the minister will concentrate more on the delivery of houses and land management.
There is a policy on housing — all experts on housing in this country should gather — all the series of meetings, interactions and consultations that were produced in 2012, that policy needs to be looked at again because the ministry did a roadmap that has 2043 as a focus. We need to check it and where there is need for amendments on the documents it should be agreed so that government and private sector would team up to provide houses at affordable cost.
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