With only 37,000 housing units to show in the 40 years of its establishment, the Federal Housing Authority has failed to fulfil its purpose, the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms. Amal Pepple, has said.
The minister said this while inaugurating the Steering Committee on the Restructuring and Commercialisation of FHA, according to a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by the Head, Public Communications, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe.
Pepple regretted that the first National Housing Policy in the country, which sought to provide houses for all Nigerians by 2000 failed, resulting in a housing deficit of about 16 million units.
She said the FHA was established in 1973 to fulfil the Federal Government’s desire to achieve mass housing for the citizenry, but regretted that after 40 years of its existence, the agency had only been able to build 37,000 houses.
The minister attributed the poor performance of the FHA to, among others, historical operating losses, huge legacy debts, poor Internally Generated Revenue base, poor corporate governance, high cost of housing units and the lack of internal cohesion.
She charged the committee to work with the technical board and the Interim Management Team of FHA to ensure the full commercialisation of the organisation in accordance with the Public Enterprises Privatisation and Commercialisation Act of 1999.
