Nigeria's housing crisis needs cheaper local building materials, developers say
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Stakeholders argue that rising construction-material costs, not a shortage of building effort, are deepening Nigeria's housing deficit, and want incentives for domestic manufacturing.
Nigeria's housing crisis may not be solved by building more houses alone. For property developers and housing experts, the more fundamental challenge is the rising cost of materials such as cement, iron rods, roofing sheets, tiles and blocks, which is putting home ownership beyond the reach of millions and forcing developers to raise prices, postpone projects or use cheaper materials.
A property developer, Mr. Obiora Okeke, said Nigeria had reached a point where it effectively exports its raw materials only to import finished products at much higher prices, and appealed to the Federal Government to tackle the rising cost of building materials, arguing that doing so would directly ease the housing crisis.
Chief Paul Okoye, a developer in Amuwo-Odofin, Lagos, said building materials can account for between 30 and 50 per cent of a project's total cost and can influence as much as 80 per cent of the schedule. He attributed rapid price increases to government fiscal policies, scarcity and hoarding of raw materials, fuel-price fluctuations, unreliable power, inadequate infrastructure, high interest rates and corruption, and noted that while cement is produced locally, most conventional building materials are imported.
The Chairman of BUA Cement Plc, Abdul Samad Rabiu, linked high cement prices to the impact of foreign exchange volatility on production costs. He said cement at about N10,000 a bag was not high given the naira's slide from around N300 to more than N1,000 to the dollar, and disclosed that a new three-million-tonne line would raise the company's capacity to about 20 million tonnes annually by the first quarter of 2027. He said he was optimistic a stronger naira would bring cement prices down.
Stakeholders want policies that make local production commercially attractive, including tax incentives, cheaper financing, better electricity and roads, and easier access to foreign exchange for machinery, rather than artificially fixed prices. Developer Dr. Doherty Oyelese said rising costs had pushed the sector to explore alternatives such as polished bamboo for floor finishing, and urged better project management to cut material wastage. They warned that programmes such as Family Homes Funds Limited's 200,000-house target will struggle if construction costs keep climbing.