Lagos — A minimum of N60 trillion need to be mobilised from both the public and the organised private sector (OPS) through the mortgage industry to tackle Nigeria's housing deficit of 16 million units.

This was disclosed at the State House, Abuja, on Monday by the Managing Director of Aso Savings and Loans Plc, Hassan Musa Usman, during a courtesy call on Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan.

Government does not need to provide all the houses, said Usman, who asserted that with provision of enabling environment for the construction of affordable mass housing, a minimum of 500,000 houses could be built per annum in the next six years.

He pointed out that a major boost to erasing the housing deficit is for government to develop a robust mortgage market that will allow individuals borrow at affordable interest rates and with repayment period of 20 to 25 years.

When fully developed the nation's housing/mortgage sector has the capacity to generate well over two million direct construction related jobs across the federation, and provide considerable multiplier effects for building materials industry, Usman added.

He said to achieve a fully developed mortgage sector that will stimulate economic growth, government must as a matter of national priority hasten the process of the passage of the Land Act Amendment Bill by applying pressure on the National Assembly to expedite consideration of the bill.

According to him, "pending the removal of the requirement for 'Governor's Consent' from the Land Use Act, we recommend that Federal Government considers using the National Economic Council meeting as a forum to convince all the 36 states to develop a checklist of requirements such that once all requirement are met, consents can be automatically given by officers delegated to do so".

In the interim, the states could significantly reduce the charges associated with the consent and in doing so, achieve greater number of transactions which will ultimately increase revenues to state governments.