By Amos Tauna
Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-rufai, of Northern Nigeria said the State government decided to sell its inherited 3,300 houses because it gets only N1m as rent yearly from record of the previous government.
Speaking at the annual ministerial press conference in Kaduna on Tuesday, the governor who spoke through the state commissioner for Works, Housing and Transport, Alh Hassan Mahmood Usman, said civil servants were not paying for the houses as it was expected.
He said the record showed that most civil servants paid as low as N690 per annum as rent on government houses.
According to him, what the State is spending in the maintenance of these houses were not in conformity with what the government is getting.
“When we came on board, we inherited 3,300 houses and we only got N1m as rent from these houses.
“It was based on this premise that we decided to sell them to interested buyers and at that we gave those living in these houses the opportunity to buy.
“Apart from that,even those who can not buy these houses ,we have invited mortgage bank to help them get the houses,” he explained.
El-rufai remarked that the bidding for the houses would be transparent to allow the citizens of the State acquire these houses, promising to ensure that proceeds from the sales would be judiciously used in other sectors.
He also disclosed that his government had invited 60 investors to develop and build houses that would take care of the growing housing demand in the State.
