The Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said cooperatives play a strategic role in implementing the government’s social investment and intervention programmes and ensuring that many people have access to programmes such as the 300,000-units Social Housing projects.
Osinbajo spoke on Monday when he received a delegation from the Cooperative Federation of Nigeria led by its President, Tajudeen Ayeola.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, disclosed this in a statement he signed on Tuesday titled ‘How large number of Nigerians can access government’s programmes – Osinbajo’.
Osinbajo said, “The partnership of cooperatives with government is possibly the only way of doing so in an efficient manner that ensures that government services and programmes get to the right people.
“The rationale for cooperatives even in the ’50s remains relevant today. When we talk about cooperatives in the Western Region and how these were very helpful, even cooperatives across the country became important pillars in the country’s economic development.
“We thought that cooperatives would be very useful in all the programmes around the Economic Sustainability Plan. One of them is the Family Homes Funds and our plans to build 300,000 social housing units.”
In his remarks, the Managing Director of Family Homes Fund, Femi Adewole, updated the Vice President on the work done so far concerning the National Social Housing Programme.
“As at year-end 2021, 17,281 homes are at various stages of construction, either completed or in progress across 15 States,” he said.
While awaiting disbursements from the Central Bank of Nigeria, Adewole disclosed that the agency was able to mobilise other resources such as N10bn from the Ministry of Finance, $60m from the African Development Bank, €20m from Agence Française De Développement, and about N20bn recycled capital from sales of completed property to execute the Social Housing programme for last year.
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