FHA and FRSC plan new housing scheme for members

In a bid to boost the housing stock in the country, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has entered into agreement with the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in the provision of affordable housing for its workers.

Under the deal, FHA will drive the implementation of its One-Man-One House policy for the staff of the organisation and meet the peculiar needs of FRSC staff.

This is the outcome of a meeting between the acting Managing Director of the FHA, David Kpue, an engineer and his FRSC counterpart, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi in Abuja.

Kpue said he was at the FRSC headquarters with his Management team to explore ways of partnering with the Corps towards providing affordable housing for its staff.He told his host that the FHA had developed a Public-Public Partnership housing delivery model to assist ministries, departments and agencies of government to execute their staff housing programmes.

He said the Authority had noticed with concern that many MDA’s, without the requisite skills and competence, were dissipating their time, energy and resources on the execution of housing projects which he said had become an avoidable distraction to them.

According to Kpue, the FHA had over the past three decades perfected its machinery for cost effective housing delivery and was willing to make it available to other government establishments.

Apart from housing schemes, which could be designed to meet the peculiar needs of FRSC staff, he said the Authority had completed housing estates in Lagos, Calabar, Yenagoa, Kaduna, Makurdi, Awka and Gombe from which the FRSC could acquire houses for its staff.

Welcoming the FHA team earlier, the Corps Marshal, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi said the FRSC’s vision was for every member of staff to have his own house before retirement in order to keep them focused on their primary duties.

He said the visit by the FHA chief executive was timely; as the Corps would in 2015 embark on an aggressive property acquisition drive to reduce the heavy burden of rent on its budget.

Oyeyemi said the Corps would be happy to acquire property in FHA housing estates nationwide for its personnel. The two chief executives agreed that a joint team of their officials should meet to work out the details of the collaboration.

Credit: Guardian Newspaper