Oluchi Chibuzor
In a bid to deepen the impact of its
affordable housing delivery programs to a greater number of Nigerian
workers within the
low and medium-income bracket nationwide, the Federal
Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has solicited for a more robust
collaboration with state governments.
This includes stronger support and
participation of states in the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme,
provision of unencumbered land for the execution of strategic FMBN
affordable collaborative housing schemes as well as support for the
elimination of high costs and systemic bottlenecks to title perfection
and governors’ consent to mortgage transactions at the state level
amongst others.
A statement signed by the Group Head,
Corporate Communications, FMBN, Ahmed Abubakar, quoted the Managing
Director/Chief Executive Officer, FMBN, Arc. Ahmed Dangiwa, to have made
the case for improved affordable housing partnership with state
governors during his briefing to the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) on
the activities, programs of the bank in Abuja recently.
Dangiwa stated that FMBN was
strategically positioned to energise state governments’ efforts to
deliver affordable housing to their citizens in a sustainable and
cost-effective manner on the back of its wide portfolio of affordable
housing products.
He said these include the NHF housing
loan of up to N15 million payable over a 30-year period at best market
interest rate of six per cent per annum; and NHF individual construction
loan at nine per cent interest rate per annum with a 15-year tenor.
Other convenient housing loan products
include rent-to-own scheme which allows beneficiaries to move into FMBN
owned houses and payback in monthly instalments over a 15-year period at
single-digit interest rates with no equity requirement and the home
renovation loans where up to N1M is given to NHF contributors who
already own their homes to carry out necessary improvements and payback
over five years.
“Additional unique FMBN partnership
advantages include the provision for zero equity contributions for
housing loans below N5 million and a maximum of 10 per cent for loans
from N5 million to N15 million,” he added.
The FMBN boss also said the partnership
would enable state governments to better take advantage of its strategic
financing windows for real estate construction and decades-old
institutional experience in social housing provisioning.
Some of the affordable real estate
financing windows Dangiwa listed included Estate Development Loans and
the Cooperative Housing Development Loans both available at rates of 10
per cent interest rates and the Off-taker Guarantee Scheme at 0.5 per
cent per annum.
The FMBN MD/CEO, in soliciting the
support and partnership of the state governors informed them that the
current executive management has set the FMBN on a new path of reform,
innovation, accountability, efficiency and high performance.
He noted that within the last three
years, they have recorded major milestones with the notable ones being:
increased public sensitisation that has led to a spike in registered
contributors to the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme to 5,026,777;
increased NHF collections totalling N134 billion to bring the cumulative
collections on NHF since inception 26 years ago to N366 billion. The
three-year performance represents 36 per cent of total collections in
the 26-year life span of the scheme, he said.
In addition, he listed others to include
increased NHF refunds to retired contributors to the scheme totalling
N21 billion within three years to bring the cumulative since inception
to N32 billion, representing a 66 per cent increase in refunds within
three-years.
Others are increased number of housing
units by 7,740, increased number of mortgage loans provisioned to 3,749,
and home renovations for 39,458 beneficiaries.
The MD further solicited that state
governments reduce title perfection fees, which currently range from
five per cent to 10 per cent, to the flat rate of 0.5 per cent for
mortgage affordability and expeditious treatment of consent to mortgage
transactions by governors to improve turnaround time.
In his response, the Chairman of the
Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and Executive Governor of Ekiti State,
Kayode Fayemi thanked the FMBN MD for his presentation. He noted that
Dangiwa made a convincing case for the collaboration, adding that the
governors were keen to engage further with FMBN as a strategic
affordable housing partner.
No comments :
Post a Comment