In an efforts to address the housing deficit across the country, the Federal government, through the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has charged developers handling housing projects on prompt delivery.
The Federal Housing Authority also warned that it will be forced to withdraw its partnerships from developers who do not meet their commitments in delivering contracted housing projects on time.
The Managing Director of the agency Oyetunde Ojo made this known when inspected the Federal Housing Authority Ibadan Housing project,Ajoda in Ibadan.
The over 1,000 units Federal Housing Authority Ajoda project which spans across over 50 hectares was incorporated four years ago through a Private Public Partnership (PPP)and was entrusted to six developers with a mandate to complete the project within a specified timeframe.
In response to this development, the recently appointed Managing Director of the Federal Housing Authority, Oyetunde Ojo, who led his team to the project site to evaluate the progress made since it was awarded to the developers.
While addressing newsmen at the site shortly after the inspection, the FHA boss expressed dissatisfaction at the level of work done saying only one partner out of six was able to deliver to a satisfactory level.
According to him, “with this project to be honest with you, satisfaction is about 20 to 25% because, out of six partners, we can only see that, only one partner is in charge of lot 4 and 5 that actually worked to satisfaction.”
He emphasized that developers using inflation as an excuse for project delays would face severe consequences which may involve the withdrawal of their contract with the Federal Government as developers.
“We should also be very careful of one thing, we knew when inflation started, a project like this should not come under reasons a contractor will be telling us inflation 4 years ago. It is a PPP and that is why I said we will not tolerate land speculators, property speculators.”
“To be honest with you, if you have given somebody four years to deliver and he can’t deliver. There is no plus that we can’t revoke, it is a straight deal in partnership.We would be forced to revoke. We can’t waste time. Housing is a serious business.” He said.
The Managing Director of The Federal Housing Authority reassured Nigerians to have confidence in the Federal Government’s commitment in delivering affordable homes that will offer true value for their money.
He said, “My message to subscribers is, they know the standard of FHA, we deliver affordable, quality, the word quality is critically key, it is not just building a house. What we want to tell our subscribers in FHA is, be assured of quality and satisfaction and value for your money because you would provide security, you would provide infrastructure in our facilities and we would make sure you enjoy all these value for your money.”