Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has explained the inability of the government to control the cost of house rent in Abuja, by forcing landlords to bring down the cost, saying the development was market-driven.
Wike, who made this known on Saturday when he inspected the Zeberced Quarry in Kubwa, Abuja, which he described as the largest in West Africa, said that such an order could be counterproductive and limit investments in the real estate sector.
The minister further said that the immediate priority of his administration was to focus on other areas of human development that would benefit everyone and ultimately lead to a crash in the overall cost of living.
“No government puts a cap as regards the cost of rent. It is the market forces. You are aware that everything has increased because of costs. The man who built the house didn’t build that he would not make a profit at the end of the day.
“I do not agree with people always complaining about rent increases, there are increases in everything today, so rent should not be singled out. Do you want us to make a law and say that a two-bed room flat should not be more than N50,000 or N100,000, for example? I do not think you are encouraging investors. That is not our major problem now,” he stated.
The FCT minister, while speaking on his impression of the quarry site, said with what he saw on the ground, the cost of construction ought not to be very expensive.
“I have not been here before, but I have taken the opportunity to look at the environment and see what they are doing. That shows that ordinarily, the cost of construction ought not to be very expensive, particularly in the FCT.
“Apart from equipment that is being imported, that is used for this quarry, the raw material is available here, and I wonder why contractors should be talking about the cost of aggregates as if these are imported. These are not imported, they are made here.
“So I want to encourage the company. It is amazing that we have this type of manufacturing going on here. This is the same company that is trying to build the industrial park in Idu, and we are going to give them all the necessary support.
“Just yesterday, I sent out a letter to the Ministry of Finance to get some tax credits to enable them to carry out the other one-carriage way to make it a double carriage,” he stated.
