ACCESSIBILITY AND AFFORDABILITY OF HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF FISH HOUSING SCHEME AMONG THE STAFF OF OFFICE OF HEAD OF CIVIL SERVICE OF THE FEDERATION ABUJA.

The growing rate of Housing deficit in Nigeria reveals a serious problem most especially among the civil servants working under the Office of The Head of Civil Service. Studies in the past have shown that several administrations in the past have put in place strategies to ameliorate these housing deficits; notable among them is the popular Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Shangri Quarters among others. Yet the housing problem still lingers among the Civil Servants till date. In attempt to proffer solution to the housing problem, the current administration came up with a new Scheme also known as; The Federal integrated Staff Housing Scheme (FISH): With the mandated of providing houses for all Civil servants and other interested stakeholders. However, The Federal Integrated Staff Housing program (FISH) also come with its own challenges which include: delayed in allocation of group land by both FCT and Federal Governments, Non availability of single digit mortgage finance in the open market to support civil servants to procure their property, limited number of real estate developers for affordable housing as opposed to contractors, inability of most civil servants to qualify for mortgage based, on their pay level & sustain mortgage repayment from their meager salary: large number of profile public servants applying for (FISH) Housing is also an issue. The Problem face by developers to source construction finance at a lower interest rate for affordable housing, and the problem of affordability and inaccessibility of the houses by civil servants who met with the set up criteria for acquiring the houses is equally a problem. These among others are the few challenges reveal by this research work. The study also reveals that of the twenty two thousand (22,000) houses promised to be delivered to civil servants by federal governments, only 387 houses are available as at the period of this investigation. The research equally pointed out that, only two hundred and three thousand (203,000) applicants applied for the FISH housing scheme as at the period of this investigation. The research also recommend that there is need for government to provide incentives such as land, infrastructure and even tax holiday for the housing developers in order to bring down the cost of houses to the barest minimum. Secondly, government should make housing provision a priority through deliberate funding of the housing loans board in order to strengthen and effectively fund the FISH Scheme in order to enable it meet up with the demand of the civil servants. Through effective and elaborate collaboration of the joint Board in conjunction with the Federal Mortgage Bank and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to jointly solve the lingering accommodation problem bedeviling the civil servants