All Civil Servants Ought To Own A Home – Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has called for a reform of the Nigerian civil service by doing “something bold and big that will make a difference.”

According to him, a mass housing policy for all civil servants fits into this “bold and big” agenda, a statement signed by presidential spokesperson Laolu Akande on Friday said.

Prof Osinbajo reportedly made the comment on Thursday at the Presidential Villa when he received a brief on the Federal Civil Service Strategy & Implementation Plan 2021-2025, presented by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan.

The meeting is a Presidential Level Briefing of the reform process of the Federal Civil Service which has been on since 2017.

The reform is being led by Steering and Implementation Committees with membership drawn from the public and private sectors with the engagement of development partners.

According to Osinbajo, “I think that we should really do something that is bold, big and that will really make the difference in order to address some of the issues especially that of accommodation for civil servants.

“We can do much more with mass housing. We have a target now of 300,000 houses under our ESP social housing scheme. CBN has allocated N200 billion, but we have seen that we can provide mass housing, and we can make civil servants beneficiaries of the scheme.”

“Though the housing scheme is very modest, it is the sort of thing that we can at least do, to begin to take into account, the fact that everybody who worked for the civil service deserves to live in their own home. There must be a strategy for giving everybody a place to live in,” Osinbajo added.

Making the point about access to affordable homes being one of the easiest ways to get people out of poverty, Prof Osinbajo said “it is a vital part of what we are trying to do”, noting that “we must address it. A civil servant ought to be able to own a home, and justify to his family the reason why he went for the job”.

-Channelstv