By Nelson Manneh
Mr. Thephane Martial Nikiema the CEO of Groupe Consortium Afrique in partnership with Mam Sait Njie has on Saturday 1st February 2020 launched a twenty-five Million Dollar housing project.
The project is designed to construct three thousand five hundred (3500) houses in the Gambia in order to make low-income earners acquire houses at low prices.
This project, according to partners, is currently existing in Burkina-Faso and it has helped low-income earners like Teachers, Nurses, Police Officers, Carpenters and other skilled workers to acquire their own houses within a short time frame.
Mr. Thephane Martial Nikiema the CEO of Groupe Consortium Afrique, a native of Burkina-Faso said to obtain a house in the whole of Africa has become a challenge especially to low-income earners.
“Our various governments find it very difficult to build houses for its citizens due to reasonable reasons beyond their control,” he said.
He said they have built a lot of houses in his country to help low-income earners purchase them at reasonable prices.
“The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) we are signing here today marks the beginning of the project and we hope to fast-track it in order to achieve our aims and objectives as soon as possible,” he said.
Mr. Mam Sait Njie a Gambian entrepreneur said the project is not only designed to build houses for Gambians but also to provide jobs for the youths.
“When we start building the houses, we will be employing over five thousand youths both with skills and without skills,” he said.
Mr. Njie said they will first start by providing training to the unskilled youths and after that, they will re-employ them.
“We have experts who will be coming from Burkina-Faso, they will join hands with Gambian experts and help them to provide training to our unskilled youths,” he said.
Mr. Njie said the first phase of the project is in Makumbaya where they will be building 3500 houses.
“There is no company in the Gambia that has ever built such a number of houses in one place, this is the first time such is happening in this country,” he said.
He added that they will extend the second phase of the project to the rural area.
“Development needs to be decentralized to minimize rural-urban migration. If we want the rural people to stay where they are, they should be provided with the necessary basic facilities,” he noted.
