Why We Are Selling Govt Houses – El-Rufai

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State while speaking at a press conference at the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) correspondents chapel on Tuesday, has said that the state government decided to sell its 3,300 houses because the government only gets N1 million as rent yearly from them.

The governor who spoke through the state Commissioner for Works, Housing and Transport, Alhaji Hassan Mahmood Usman said civil servants were not paying as it was expected.

According to him, what the state was spending for the maintenance of these houses was not comparable with what the government was getting from the houses.

“When we came on board, we inherited 3,300 houses and we only get N1 million as rent from these houses.

“It was based on this premise that we decided to sell them to interested buyers; we gave those living in these houses the opportunity to buy.

“Apart from that, for those who cannot buy these houses, we have invited mortgage to help them get the houses.”

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 said his government had invited 60 investors to develop and build houses that would take care of the growing housing demand in the state.