Iran Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Nigeria to build 30,000 houses across the country in the next four years.
The housing project, meant for low- and medium-income earners, is to be undertaken through collaboration between the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Customer Centric Contractor of Iran. FHA’s Public Relations Officer, Tunde Ipinmisho, said the 30,000 housing units would cost about N200 billion.
Though the final details of the project are still being worked out, FHA’s acting Managing Director, Mr. Felix Koyenikan, said that the MOU, which spells out the duties and obligations of each party under the agreement, was the authority’s biggest effort towards addressing the country’s housing challenges.
Koyenikan said the 30,000 housing units to be constructed under the agreement represented the total number of houses built by the authority since its establishment.
According to him, the nation’s huge housing deficit was a great challenge that the authority was poised to tackle and that the opportunity of partnership with local and off-shore private sector operators provided a platform to fast-track the process of housing delivery.
Also speaking at the pact-signing ceremony, Nigeria’s Ambassador to the Iran, Al haji Abubakar Cika, said the MOU was coming under the general bilateral agreement signed between the two countries.
Cika said similar MOUs had been signed between the two countries covering energy, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas as well as other areas critical to Nigeria’s development goals.
