Official: Mortgage bank to tackle house deficit with NHF scheme
The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria says that it is targeting multiple housing units across states of the federation through the National Housing Fund scheme, as part of efforts to tackle the housing deficit in the country.
Executive Director, Business Development and Portfolio Management, Abdullahi Umar Dankane, disclosed this in Sokoto, at a two-day zonal retreat organised for officials of the bank.
He said that the scheme is a collaborative project with some organisations to provide 100 houses per states across the federation.
Dankane listed the National Employers Consultative Association, the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress as early organisations that are participating in the scheme.
“We intend to build 100 housing units in every state of the federation. For now, we are taken 14 states as pilot. It is a collaborative project which we intend to deliver in six months. It is also a rollover system until the last Nigerian benefit from the project,” Dankane explained.
He urged Nigerians to embrace the scheme in order to harness its immense benefits. According to him; “It is only when you are a contributor that you can get mortgage to secure a house.”
He recounted that the scheme has so far refunded about N24 billion its exiting contributors, out of which N16 billion was disbursed within the last two years by the new management.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Director explained the retreat is to ensure cross-fertilization of ideas between the head office and field offices to engender constant improvement in the bank’s service delivery and bottom-line.
“We are currently plagued by lack of up-to-date data on NHF contributors in many organisations across the state.
“This has been hampering the ability of the Bank to give accurate information on NHF contributions to individuals contributors to the scheme, and has also unjustly portrayed the books of the Bank negatively before regulatory authorities and other stakeholders,” he further explained
He added that the Bank is committed to further enlighten the public on the benefits of the mortgage system and how it can generate infrastructural development in the country.
