Omobolanle Shosanya
Arc .Ahmed Dangiwa,the Minister of Housing and Urban Development has lamented lack of verifiable data in Nigeria’s housing sector.
He stated this on Tuesday at an inaguaral ceremony of of a Joint Steering Committee on National Housing Data to tackle Housing deficit in the country.
He said: “We do not have verifiable data in the housing sector to work with, what we have hadover decades are extimations and speculations.
“The lack of credible scientific verifiable data on the state of housing in our country stand out as the most pressing and embarrassing issue. Lack of unverifiable data impacts on the number of resources to be allocated.
“This is because without data we can not know the magnitude of the problems we are dealing with, how much resources we need to allocate, how long our projects will last and which areas to prioritise, infact we will be ‘flying blind’.
“To determine housing data, we must count all houses, both habitable and non- habitable houses across all geopolitical zones”
The Minister tasked the new committee with the the mandate to develop to develop an accurate blueprint data for the housing sector within twelve (12) months.
The committee’s members includes
representatives of the National Population Commission, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, among others.
“The committee has been established as a strategic partnership among key stakeholders in Nigeria’s housing market, with the mandate to develop and implement a blueprint for ensuring transparency and ease of access to housing data in Nigeria, which will be essential for policy and decision-making towards affordable housing and the well-being of Nigerians,” the minister explained.
The minister also outlined the key deliverables expected from the Committee, including the development of frameworks for setting up the NHDC, data collection from public and private institutions, and the distribution of housing data to institutional and retail investors.
“I urge all the members to take this national assignment seriously and dedicate their efforts and resources to achieving the goals for which this committee is set up.
“Under the Renewed Hope Agenda, we are firmly against creating committees that do not deliver on their mandates.
“The timelines are clear, the deliverables are also clear. Let us work towards meeting them and charting a new and credible path forward for housing data acquisition, management, and usage,” he said.
