By Abdulrahman Abdullahi
Federal Government has expressed readiness to disburse N200 billion facility fund earmarked for the Federal Government’s Social Housing Scheme.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement.
He said that the National Social Housing Programme (NSHP), under the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), had received a further boost.
“Following the finalisation of the agreement with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the N200 billion facility, the drawdown, with a guarantee from the Ministry of Finance, is now commencing to fund the housing project 3.
“The fund, which would be released in tranches, is expected to cover the NSHP project execution cost of the houses that would be constructed under the social housing project.
“Under the Social Housing Programme, the Federal Government plans to support 1.5 million Nigerians to acquire low-cost houses either through mortgage options or Rent to own option.
“The scheme is expected to also generate 1.8 million jobs and deliver houses to about 1.5 million Nigerian families”, Akande said.
African Housing News reported that the presidential aide also said, the number of beneficiaries of the ESP’s Payroll Support, Artisan support track, Transport Track and Free Business Names, had risen to million.
“Over one million Nigerians have so far benefitted from the Survival Fund scheme under the Buhari administration’s ESP, with about 500,000 Nigerians beneficiaries from the MSMEs Payroll support track, 44,500 beneficiaries under the one-off General MSME Grant, and another 265,425 under the artisan support track.
“Besides, there are also 202, 494 Nigerians who have registered their business names for free.
“It would be recalled that payment to new beneficiaries of the Payroll Support track and the one-time General MSME Grant had commenced at the end of April.
“So far, under the ESP there are now over one million beneficiaries nationwide from the various schemes.
“For the Payroll Support track, there are so far 459,307 successful beneficiaries. Under the scheme, beneficiaries received payments of the N30,000 or N50,000 grant per month for a period of three months”, he added.