Sections
Poll: Power pledge
Is Mr. President's promise of additional 6,000 MW of electricity in 18 months achievable?
Lakeview Estate gears up for early delivery
Font size:
In spite of enormous challenges arising from escalating prices of building inputs and other extraneous factors, Personal Trust Savings and Loans, (Petrust), developers of Lakeview Estate in Amuwo Odofin area of Lagos State says the project has reached 60 percent completion level, assuring prospective buyers of of early delivery.
According to the developers, the estate which had initial delivery date of March this year had to be delay for reasons which, they said, were beyond their immediate control, hence the new delivery date in June.
Petrust managing director, Anthony Owuye, told Business Day that project management was very difficult in a country like Nigeria because of what he called "uncertainties in the system", adding that it could be difficult to predict and determine delivery time of a project.
"You should understand that you have to rely on other contractors who have their own challenges. In this country, people have no respect for contract. Even when a party to a contract defaults and you decide to take him to court, how reliable is the court? You will be woefully disappointed to discover that the court will delay you more than the contractor", he said.
He also noted the problem of the nation's macro-economy, pointing out that "those important economic indices that you want to hold constant, are never constant. The longest one can project in this country today is a week, and this means that the best approach is to project on weekly basis; anything distant is unreliable.
Owuye assured that they were doing everything they could to ensure that they delivered at the earliest possible date. "About 60 percent of the houses are ready now. If for any reason, by the end of June we are still facing these challenges that will make it not possible for us to deliver, we will know that about 70 percent will be available for delivery. We also enjoy the fact that not many of the buyers are anxious to take possession of the houses", he enthused, adding: "We are happy that our future is assured as a mortgage bank that has elected to produce affordable housing upon which mortgage could be provided."
On the reasons why the project had to suffer the delay, Owuye was quick to recall the outrageous rise in the price of cement early this year followed by prices of other inputs.
He said: "When we planned this project, the costing was made on N1, 150 per 50 kilogram bag of cement. But all along, we have been buying cement at an average of N1, 500 and N1, 600. At a time, we had to buy at N2, 200 and when it got to N2, 400, we stopped building and for that we lost about two months in our delivery date."
He also lamented the recent rise in the price of steel, whose price, according to him has gone up almost 300 percent.
"Suddenly, steel has crept in on us. Our projection for steel was N87,000 per ton, but today we are talking about N300,000 per ton. Our contractor had to wait for over two months for his order to be delivered. This is part of the delay in our delivery date", he said.
To come out of these challenges facing estate developers, Owuye advised that government had the responsibility of ensuring macro-economic stability in addition to providing infrastructure because, "it is the cost of infrastructure, which developers now have to provide, that escalates the cost of housing delivery/construction and all these costs have to be passed on to the buyers"
He disclosed that his bank would be going to the market in no distant time to raise fund through private placement, promising that the money to be raised would be put to use.
According to him, "most of the things that are causing us delay from delivery will be taken care of because we have learnt on the job.
Some of the infrastructures that will be needed in our subsequent projects are now in place such as roads, water and electricity. By the time we take on Phase 2 and 3, we are going to deliver promptly.
We however, want to be known more as a mortgage bank than as a developer; yet it is part of our vision and mission to deliver affordable housing to Nigerians; we appeal that our mortgage banking services and products be appreciated and preferred".
According to the developers, the estate which had initial delivery date of March this year had to be delay for reasons which, they said, were beyond their immediate control, hence the new delivery date in June.
Petrust managing director, Anthony Owuye, told Business Day that project management was very difficult in a country like Nigeria because of what he called "uncertainties in the system", adding that it could be difficult to predict and determine delivery time of a project.
"You should understand that you have to rely on other contractors who have their own challenges. In this country, people have no respect for contract. Even when a party to a contract defaults and you decide to take him to court, how reliable is the court? You will be woefully disappointed to discover that the court will delay you more than the contractor", he said.
He also noted the problem of the nation's macro-economy, pointing out that "those important economic indices that you want to hold constant, are never constant. The longest one can project in this country today is a week, and this means that the best approach is to project on weekly basis; anything distant is unreliable.
Owuye assured that they were doing everything they could to ensure that they delivered at the earliest possible date. "About 60 percent of the houses are ready now. If for any reason, by the end of June we are still facing these challenges that will make it not possible for us to deliver, we will know that about 70 percent will be available for delivery. We also enjoy the fact that not many of the buyers are anxious to take possession of the houses", he enthused, adding: "We are happy that our future is assured as a mortgage bank that has elected to produce affordable housing upon which mortgage could be provided."
On the reasons why the project had to suffer the delay, Owuye was quick to recall the outrageous rise in the price of cement early this year followed by prices of other inputs.
He said: "When we planned this project, the costing was made on N1, 150 per 50 kilogram bag of cement. But all along, we have been buying cement at an average of N1, 500 and N1, 600. At a time, we had to buy at N2, 200 and when it got to N2, 400, we stopped building and for that we lost about two months in our delivery date."
He also lamented the recent rise in the price of steel, whose price, according to him has gone up almost 300 percent.
"Suddenly, steel has crept in on us. Our projection for steel was N87,000 per ton, but today we are talking about N300,000 per ton. Our contractor had to wait for over two months for his order to be delivered. This is part of the delay in our delivery date", he said.
To come out of these challenges facing estate developers, Owuye advised that government had the responsibility of ensuring macro-economic stability in addition to providing infrastructure because, "it is the cost of infrastructure, which developers now have to provide, that escalates the cost of housing delivery/construction and all these costs have to be passed on to the buyers"
He disclosed that his bank would be going to the market in no distant time to raise fund through private placement, promising that the money to be raised would be put to use.
According to him, "most of the things that are causing us delay from delivery will be taken care of because we have learnt on the job.
Some of the infrastructures that will be needed in our subsequent projects are now in place such as roads, water and electricity. By the time we take on Phase 2 and 3, we are going to deliver promptly.
We however, want to be known more as a mortgage bank than as a developer; yet it is part of our vision and mission to deliver affordable housing to Nigerians; we appeal that our mortgage banking services and products be appreciated and preferred".
Add to:
del.icio.us |
Digg
del.icio.us |
Digg
Email to a friend
Print version
Plain textRate this article
Comments ( posted):
Post your comment