Chief Austine Oguejiofor is a bundle of business magnet with vast interest in oil and gas, industry, power and real estate sectors of the economy.

Chief Oguejiofor is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of a conglomerate Rotech Energy Services Limited,
that is currently investing huge resources in the construction of a sprawling Housing Estate, Anambra Luxury Palace Estate, Nkwelle in Anambra State.

Although, the conglomerate sunk funds into the multi-billions naira housing project during the immediate past administration of Chief Willy Obiano but was still recording magnitude of success under the present Charles Soludo’s government in the state.

Located just by the Old Onitsha Toll gate in a community known for disturbing activities but with the conglomerate desire to deliver a World Class housing estate, it waged in & created peace, and invested so much in CSR to make it a habitable area which now termed GRA by the investors

The estate is an international community created by team of professionals and investors, who come together afresh with a shared purpose and vision.

In this interview, Chief Oguejiofor, who is also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of First Rotech Group, said the community is a planned model residential estate that is consciously designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork.

He bares his minds, apart from insecurity taking its toll on the real sector of the economy, on other constraints and challenges being experienced in the building industry, specially, as they affect the private developers.

He also spoke on other issues and policies drawing back the wheel of progress in the nation’s housing industry.

Challenges

On challenges, I will start from the professionals in the field. Real Estate is not a business where you must be a degree holder, you must be an engineer or you must be a town planner before you venture into. But at the end of the day professionals must come on board.

I said earlier that Rotech is a company where professionals agreed to work to achieve results. You are working with specification and approval by development control and we don’t change even an iron during construction.

Our building work is peculiar, now you will go to another site, they will have two designs, approve this, the day the authority or Development Control, DC, will come for inspection they will present this and they are going far below the expectations.

We don’t compromise standard and quality. If you visit all our estates in Abuja, the nation’s capital will attest to what I am telling you and that is what marks the difference.
Now you want to sell because of what you have put on ground but the other side of the game, your competitor is not selling at that rate maybe below because of lack of due diligence on part of Development Control, DC, the Standard Organization of Nigeria, SON, in charge of regulations of products and all those provisions.

Now you will continue to work and put the best on ground and our clients, I don’t know whether it is the orientation, are not ready at some point to really see it, I know it is a matter of time people will definitely get to know that if you are dealing with such groups you don’t last.

So, building estate is the end product that people are looking at and the major challenge, is those of us committed to produce quality homes may not have good buyers all the time.

The industry, you know it is capital intensive. Now anywhere you go to source for funds, you know how the country is, the banks are not ready to lend to real estate.

The issues if you touch it you will find out that professionals have made the business too bad; because from history, the bank will tell you, we have lend to company A but they can’t sell, maybe the company genuinely used good materials and calculated the interest of the bank and if you add it, they can’t sell and the project is there.

Banks will say we did to that company; they did a poor job, now back to professionals again, that they can’t sell. So the banks will tell you that their monies are hanging in different places.

When the product is compromised it is either the bank and people will not buy because it is poor or the finishing is good but because of the competition of the prices in the market.

Motive to compromise

The motive to compromise is the drive for profit because as a developer, your desire is not incur loses.

So a developer will be interested only in the management of the estate. If I sell at this amount, if I take 20 percent profit, this money will not be enough to use for iron as approved, so please go lesser so I will maintain; instead of taking down the 20 percent the quality of material will now go lower. So that is why I said, the reason for compromising especially is the pricing, is to make profit.

Developers

I have carried out check wide in Abuja, I have worked with developers almost 70 percent are not professionals in line of construction and they are not close to anything environment.

In real estate business, there are three things; number one, it is either you construct or you develop, construction and development is the same path or you manage, these are two things and then if you construct or in construction or in development, it is either you strict to the construction or the market.

So if you go into the development you will find out that the CEO or the head of the company is not a professional then he is in the marketing. So whatever the construction guy says or decides to do, he is in the field marketing after his calculation. But now in this case I am a professional, I am in it, setting out of the building, as a town planner, we have access to equipments, I work with my surveyors and supervisors.

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Like our Anambra Luxury Palace Estate, Nkwelle, the estate is equipped to provide you the experience of living in nature without compromising the basic comforts of modern life. It is based in the value of building serene community.

The estate is gifted with unique feature facilities with fascinated aesthetical and landscaping services professionally dotted the spacious land scape.

Abuja Master Plan

The development of FCT is so interesting that there is a Master Plan, every portion you see in Abuja there is a design or there will be a design before anything happens.

Now in this place, from the approval, the Development Control sets in, according to the engineering department, the road level that will come over time will be this metre, don’t use the ground level now, you use what the engineering department set, FCDA has played their part as regards the Master Plan but the issue now is implementation of the master plan.

The amount I suppose to pay connecting the sewage, environmental protection board of the registration, I will dig a septic system and I will still pay the government. Now it will take me a distance of 400 metres to connect to that estate. So like I said implementation of the master plan is the problem.

Abuja is a calculated city in such a away that the Development Control officials, they will tell you what could be done or couldn’t be done in a place. They will tell you we cannot give you approval for this number of families because in the Master Plan, this plot of land should not take more than this number of families or less than this families. So at the end of the day if you look at the FCT you will see that it is sweet and will not be as bad as other cities.

So you can see it is your choice, if the document is there, no way FCDA will allow a portion for filling station to be used for church or for any other purpose.

So if FCDA will go and say in a district, let’s say there are 10,000 plots in a particular district and 5,000 have paid for C of O will not attend to infrastructure, attend to the implementation of the master plan because number one, the utilities and services are basic in the implementation of that district.

If you look, over time, El-Rufai tried because he is from the field too, but Bala Mohammed came, he is not from the field, he just allocated plots and left, this present minster, came, there is no feeling of his existence.

So implementation is not easy, the guys we are having on board are not from the, field. So, I feel this if the FCT will look at it and drive by the current report of FCDA, of course we have AGIS an arm of FCDA that have records of all the lands.

Insecurity

Insecurity is another thing that is touching almost every one. Real estate is one of the businesses that you will do and go and sleep but because of insecurity people don’t want to see it that way.

For example you can’t compare past administrations that moved money easily, some that invested in real estate and some that took the money away out of town, which one is better.

So insecurity is another thing in the business. Now even in the heart of Abuja, it is not safe. Places like Citech, Gwarimpa and others, there is fears of insecurity.

If the government will look at that angle and handle it well, people will feel safe; people will feel free to invest. I know of people that have relocated out of the country.

You build, people don’t want to buy. People say no I have N50 million, it is better I just be eating it small, small, I don’t know whether they want to divide the country, I don’t know whether Boko Haram will take over Abuja, so it is affecting the property development and management. And worse still are the activities of bandits and kidnappers. People are so afraid of this situation.

On a good time, according to the Master Plan of Abuja, nobody should do fence above two metres. But in Abuja today you can see the security situation, who wants to park his G-Wagon or Prado Jeep for people to see it and say there is a big man in this compound.

So you can see the cost of construction is now high for me because the calculation based on approval is to do dwarf fence but now people say make it higher. So you can see that insecurity is hitting both the developer and the buyer.

High cost of materials

The cost of materials now in the industry, high rocketing, even sinking a bore hole, way back, bore hole with casing could cost about N1 million but it is now a different case. Price of every building material is sky rocketing, name them, is it cement, iron rod, roofing sheets. So, it is very expensive to construct a building up to finished level. We are buying at over 100 percent compared to what entail about six to three years back

Harsh economy

The current unfavourable economic situation is in no doubt taking its tow on the sector like other sectors of the economy. Mind you, this situation is not peculiar to Nigeria alone. Even in the developed economy, there are issues of dwindling economy here and there. This is impacting negatively on the housing sector and as such inflicting some hardship on players in the sector. But I’m confident we will get out of the doldrums very soon by the time measures are being put in place by the government to revolutionize the economy begin to yield results.. Don’t forget that government is the major player in our economy. Money circulates easily when government is spending. This could be in the area of awarding of contracts, especially in the construction and building sector. If the building sector becomes alive viable, so many employment opportunities will open up for job seekers. I think I will advise government to give serious attention to the building of massive housing because efforts in this direction will go a long way to navigate country from the current recession. This sector holds the key to economic recovery.

Bridging 20 million housing deficits

It is simple. The Federal Government should provide a secured and conducive business environment. As a man of international repute, we will use our business contacts to woo investors to invest in the building sector of the economy. I will encourage foreign investors to bring in their business community to invest in the country. Nigeria is a haven for any genuine investor because of its high population. I have easy accessibility to the world, to Europe, Far East, Middle East and other major African countries, from where investors will willingly invest in property in Nigeria. It is also important for the government to establish a viable mortgage system, because it will strengthen home ownership. For example, a mortgage system where rent payment will lead to owning a house. This system will afford the low income earners the opportunity of owning an apartment after many years of paying rent to the mortgage institution. From being a tenant, they become a landlord. Government should therefore come in to provide the enabling environment by encouraging mortgage. Government should as a matter of urgency consider public housing as a form of social responsibilities considering that the financial arrangement with the mortgage institutions may be beyond the reach of low income earners in Nigeria. Local building materials should be encouraged and also mass production of building material. This will make the materials to be affordable to the poor. I will also suggest that process of building plan approval and issuance of Certificate of Occupancy should be made faster and less cumbersome. The cumbersome property registration processes are major barriers to housing development and home-ownership, leading to the country’s huge housing deficit.