Implications of Housing Corporations’ Capacity on Successful Delivery of Mass Housing Programmes

Abstract

There has been several ambitious housing policies in Nigeria spanning across pre and post-independence aimed at addressing the growing housing deficit using the concept of Mass Housing Programmes (MHPs), including the recent MHPs in the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan- (NESP) (2021-2025). However, implementation of the policies has not addressed the housing deficit because records confirmed the low performances of MHPs whereby only a fraction of the units intended to be built are delivered. The strategy for implementing the MHP is that, implementation institutions are to utilise Estate Developers (EDs) such as Housing Corporations (HCs) to drive the successful execution of the projects and based on the scale of the MHP in the NESP, the capacity of EDs in general and HCs specifically will have implications on its success. As such, this study was designed to ascertain the implications of HCs capacity towards successful delivery of MHPs in Nigeria. A Case Study Research design was used to collect data from HCs of six North-West states in Nigeria using an interview. Data was analysed using a single case and crosscase technique. Results revealed that the experiences in the practices of HCs in MHPs has the potentials to: reduce project cost; reduce project time; increase clients’ satisfaction; and develop human resource. It was concluded that the HCs in North-West States possess capacity to successfully deliver MHPs such as the NESP and future National Housing Programmes (NHPs). Based on the findings of this research, the study recommends that the vulnerability of HCs should be studied to get a more encompassing picture of performance potentials in successfully delivering MHPs. Furthermore, a more comprehensive study should be undertaken to cover the HCs across Nigeria to get information that could enable their optimal integration into MHPs. The implication of the findings is that, since the HCs demonstrated some capacities to deliver MHPs, EDs can successfully delivered MHPs if other enabling factors that are key to delivery of MHPs such as finance, among others are put in place. The limitation of the study is that the study covers only six HCs, thus, generalisation of the findings could be limited.