Owerri Needs 30,000 Houses

The Imo State Governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, has revealed that Owerri, the state capital, requires about 30,000 houses to cater for the housing needs of the populace.

Ohakim who disclosed this at the maiden Imo State Housing summit held in the Imo State capital, noted that with the shortage of housing globally and how it affects Imo State in particular, every effort must be made to tackle the problem frontally while not losing side of the current global economic crisis.

The Governor, who was represented by the Special Adviser on Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Tito Asekhame, however, regretted that housing is always out of the range of the ordinary man, stressing that it is the action of the industry stakeholders that would ensure that the ordinary man has access to shelter.

He asserted that it is imperative in the sense that irrespective of how the economic condition is, the common man would continue to struggle and require shelter.

Ohakim called on the policy makers to ensure that the cost of renting and mortgage does not spiral out of proportion, while expressing outrage at the high cost of renting a house in the state and lamented the lack of basic infrastructure in these houses.

Elaborating that previous administrations have tried to address the situation, he stated that the answer to meeting the housing needs of the citizenry is through private sector participation stressing that the government has been largely unsuccessful in handling housing developmental needs due to lean resources.

He noted that with the increasingly high cost of building a house, it is only an effective partnership between public and private sectors that can help solve the problem.

-Vanguard