…intensifies effort to attract more investors in housing sector
From John Silas, Lagos
As part of efforts to ensure provision of affordable houses for Ekiti people, the Ekiti State Government said it has secured a sum of ₦2.6B housing fund from the Federal Government under the Family Home Fund to build a 550 housing units in the State.
The Executive Secretary of Ekiti State Mortgage Board, Ms Oludayo Olorunfemi, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday during a meeting with estate management investors and other stakeholders in the housing sector.
The meeting had in attendance, the Deputy Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Rt Hon Hakeem Jamiu; Regional Manager North Cooperative Mortgage Bank, Akeem Ikumoguniyi; Managing Director, Family Homes Funds Limited, Femi Adewole represented by Mr Hussaini Yusuf Ijabah; Representative of Dangote Group, John Ughiobhe; Managing Director, Sammya Nigeria Limited, Sammy Adigun.
Others are Managing Director Laadmonay Nigeria Limited, Stephen Adigun; Chief Executive Officer of Greenland Concept, Kemi Sijuawade; Managing Director of Hebron Shelter, Ebenezer Adebisi and other top investors in the housing sector.
Discussions at the meeting centered on various mechanism that government had put in place to achieve the vision of constructing 5000 housing units across the state that would be affordable and available to individual irrespective of their social class, job type, income level, gender or other divisive indices through loan of low interest rates.
Addressing the gathering, Olorunfemi revealed that the State Government, through the Ekiti State Mortgage board, has embarked on aggressive campaign that would promote enlightenment on the various opportunities available in the housing sector. This, she said would eliminate the knowledge gap barriers that could prevent them from taking advantage of the loan.
She said in addition to the ₦2.6 housing fund secured from the federal government, several other credible actors in the private sector had begun to show interest on how they can partner the state government in developing housing sector in the State.
Speaking further on the need for more investors to key into the housing investment opportunities in the State, Olorunfemi explained that the Dr Kayo Fayemi led administration had built an ecosystem and legal structure that supports the viability of housing investment in the State.
She said the 2020 Ekiti State Mortgage and Foreclosure law that established the agency made provision for the protection of investments of the investor in the case where customers defaulted in paying back the loan or delayed its payment.
“The Governor Kayode Fayemi administration has done a lot in terms of building structure and putting institutions and long lasting legacy to ensure continuous growth both in the economic and in the social lives of the people which is part of the reason Ekiti is benefiting from part of the National Social Housing project.
“This also send signal to private investors and to private developers that if this project is happening in Ekiti, if it is economically viable in Ekiti, then they might as well come and invest in Ekiti and we have the ecosystem to support this we can see all the road infrastructure going on and all the development programmes to support the economy.
“And there are also private investors coming to the State, who because of this project will be confident to say let us come to Ekiti and come and build and we have had concrete expression of interest backed up with action from Connect Homes, Wemabond Estate is coming up, there is Diamond Gate Estate coming up, there is Millard Fuller Foundation Estate also coming up, this is a great time for home investment in Ekiti.
Speaking with journalists shortly after the event, the Managing Director of Connect Homes and the CEO of Ekiti Home Agenda programme, Mr Ope Akeju said the desire of the programme was to achieve the building of 5000 homes across the State.
Akeju disclosed that some of the developers like Wemabond Estate and Diamond Gate Estate had started building a 150 gated homes and 250 gated homes respectively in different parts of the state.
