Lafarge Wapco, manufacturer and marketer of cement and LAPO, a foremost microfinance bank which entered into a partnership recently to provide affordable housing to low income earners in Nigeria have declared their readiness to finance 400 clients on housing projects in the next six months.
LAPO is disbursing the housing project loans at 1.6 percent interest rate; one percent below its normal interest rate of 2.6 percent per month and has so far financed 50 clients.
In October last year, Lafarge Wapco and Agence Francaise de Developpment (AFD) leveraged their existing relationship to partner with LAPO in providing affordable housing to low income earners in Nigeria.
The agreement was signed to the tune of N1 billion at the Sagamu Plant of Lafarge, Ogun State.
Under the agreement, LAPO will disburse the loans while Lafarge will provide the technical support and necessary assistance to ensure that the housing project is strong and well executed to the plan and budget.
The scheme tagged ‘Ile Irorun’ in Nigeria was initiated by Lafarge in response to the challenges of urbanization in Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with housing gap estimated at about 17 million units.
Boyer Aurelien, the Lafarge Housing Project manager said last week in Lagos while clarifying the initiative with journalists that the company has been a trail blazer in affordable housing field in 12 countries around the world.
“The ambition of the cement company is to impact the lives of two million people by 2020. Lafarge placed Nigeria as one of its key priorities for the delivery of affordable housing solutions” he said.
Godwin Ehigiamusoe, the managing director of LAPO stated that the microfinance company which projects to disburse N92.7 billion this year under its financial services said LAPO involvement is in furtherance of its commitment to social and economic empowerment of persons at the bottom end of the society.
According to him, “shelter is an aspiration of every human being rich or poor, thus there is need for liberalization of access to housing as house ownership is a symbol of maturity and fulfillment for everybody irrespective of gender or one’s station of life”
The LAPO-Lafarge affordable housing project complements the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company project launched by the President Goodluck Jonathan last week.
The NMRC which is taking off with capital of N6 billion is a secondary mortgage company with objective of refinancing mortgages that will be originated by primary mortgage lenders, including primary mortgage banks and commercial banks that into mortgage business.
By: Daniel Obi
