Kingsley U.N. Chikwendu —
The Managing Director of Shelter Afrique, Andrew Chimphonda has said that the pan African housing institute aims at bridging Nigeria’s housing deficit through project finance – where developers can be financed directly. He also added that the institute will provide lines of credit to banks to bolster the provision of mortgages.
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Chimphonda while speaking with Nigerian ThisDayLive in an interview, admitted that to solve the affordable housing problem, it need to be addressed as a volume business that will make commercial sense for developers.
“At Shelter Afrique, our contribution to achieving this goal (bridging housing deficit) is two-pronged, the Zimbabwean national said.
“First is project finance – where we finance the developers directly. At present, our investment appetite is to consider large-scale projects of nothing less than 1,000 units. Secondly, we provide lines of credit to banks to bolster the provision of mortgages. Recently, we provided $10 million to Wema Bank for this specific purpose.
“However, to solve the affordable housing problem, we believe it should be addressed as a volume business – to make commercial sense for developers.
“We have addressed this by proposing Private-Public-Partnerships (PPPs) of no less than 1,000 units; this is our primary product under our revised strategy. We have made progress in Rwanda, Togo, and Cameroon, and are concluding conversations here in Nigeria to deliver similar projects”, Chimphonda added.
