Buea Council signs FCFA 4 billion low-cost housing deal

Buea Council has entered a partnership with a Canadian Non-profit Organisation, Options for Homes, to provide cost-effective housing within the municipality.

Ekema Patrick Esunge, Mayor, and his team signed on behalf of the Buea Council, while Henry Neba Awantoh signed for the over 25-year-old Canadian low-cost housing outfit. The site for the project is situated adjacent the Buea Central market which is presently under construction to the tune of FCFA 2.5 billion, fruits of South-South corporation.

“Yesterday we embarked on a South-South Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and today we have moved further to a North-South MoU, meaning that if there were some lapses on the former, the current rectifies the error,” Ekema said.

He added that: “We’re very sure and quite optimistic given that we’ve met the founder of Options for Home, a non-profit organisation based in Toronto, Canada. We had in-depth discussions. He gave us assurances. As I said, we’re very optimistic that if we had problems with the former MoU, then such has been corrected with this one.”

The mayor admits it is no easy task to bring development to local communities given that decentralisation gives mayors more work. He, however, said they’ve signed agreements to the tune of FCFA 6.5 billion and all of these are destined to fundamentally transform Buea.

“For those who were here during our campaigns, we said ‘change has come to Buea’ and we presume we are living the change and we shall do more. We recently concluded a tour to the 87 villages in our municipality wherein we took a catalogue of commitments with the respective communities. As a council, we have diagnosed all the commitments we took and we’ve embarked on the realisation of the projects.

“In terms of this project, the council is giving out its capital – land. We know that land is most valuable in any economy. We’re protected because we have a land certificate. That is what attracted our customers more. I’ll assure the public that we sold high. We didn’t sell cheap. If you got the analysis, the council will end up owning two units within the scheme. Each of these units will have twenty apartments. That gives the council forty apartments and will be making two million francs monthly. In the course of signing building permits to the structures we envisage within the ceded land, the council will make 1% of FCFA 4 billion. Worthy of note is the fact that it is a FCFA 4 billion project. If it is four billion, the laws permit us to collect one percent of the total cost from the developer – FCFA 40 million in this case. We have as royalty FCFA 1,000 per apartment. Plus the initial investment cost of FCFA 400 million, you see that the council stands tall in this arrangement.”

Ekema rubbished claims that he signs development agreements to line his wallet. “Like I said, it is not because we want to reap from this giant project, but because we want to leave our footprints on the sands of time and ensure that we safeguard posterity. If you look at the span of the project, it ends in 2019 – after our mandate and we didn’t bother to look into whether we’ll be the ones to receive the project or not. We conceived the project with the knowledge that we are building our municipality and leaving a legacy for younger generations,” Ekema said.

To Neba Awantoh of Options for Homes, theirs is to bring their over 25 years of creating communities around the globe to Buea.

“This is a sustainable program. Options for Homes is a giant real estate organisation based in Toronto, Canada. We’ve been at work for over 25 years. We succeeded at a time that the economic crisis hit the global market, and we were able to make it. We make home-ownership affordable. The trick about housing is to create a system of delivery mechanisms such that people can have houses at a low cost. That is what we’ve embarked to do in Cameroon. We’re financially fit to carry on this project. We call on the population to count on us. Statistics have shown that when you own a home, you live a better life, a longer life. And the communities that own homes are very educated communities. Our interest in Buea is to create a system where people can begin to live in liveable, beautiful and attractive communities.”