By Danjuma Auta
All is now set for the customers and beneficiaries of the ECWA Development Finance Scheme Limited (EDFSL) to own their homes. During the ground breaking ceremony to kick start the EDFSL housing scheme held opposite Police Dog Training School, near Rayfield, Jos South LGA of Plateau State, the ECWA President, Rev. Dr. Stephen Panya Baba, enjoined ECWA members to invest in the scheme so as to have their own personal houses. Rev. Baba disclosed that it was a privilege that the vision which was conceived about 30 years ago by the founding leaders of the church was being fulfilled at their own time. He stated that since EDFSL was planning to construct such houses in all the ECWA Trustee zones and was no more strictly for pastors and ECWA staffers, members who key into the initiative would soon have befitting and affordable houses for themselves.
In a brief charge, ECWA General Secretary, Rev. Yunusa Sabo Nmadu, said that EDFSL had started on the right footing, which was very commendable. Taking his reading from Ecclesiastis 11:6, the cleric stated that the book was full of advice to an uncertain future and advised EDFSL investors to thank God for those from whose visions they were now benefiting, adding that the company should be guided in faith because it was a product of the faith of the ECWA founding fathers. In his welcome address, the Chairman, EDFSL Governing Board, Rev. Dr. Ezekiel O. Adeleye, described the event as the first fruit in the personal housing delivery to ECWA pastors, staff and members with an authorized share capital of 1 billion ordinary shares at one naira each. He disclosed that within the first three years of its existence, it had built commercial property worth billions of naira in Kaduna, Lagos and Port Harcourt as a way of actualizing the vision of the founding fathers of ECWA.
Rev. Adeleke disclosed that the company had acquired land at Rayfield, Rafin-Gwaza and Karu to start housing schemes so as to ensure that the era where pastors, staff and members retired without houses of their own was over. The Director, EDFSL, Mr. Solomon Idokpa, explained that the scheme was an initiative to encouraged staff to contribute towards having their own homes with six years’ gestation period before it would mature for beneficiaries to be able to access the homes but because it was God’s own project and a project of faith, everything was working faster than expected. He assured subscribers who had already made down payment and fulfilled other conditions that their apartments would be ready in four months’ time.