Determined to deepen the impact of its affordable housing delivery programmes to a greater number of Nigerian workers within the low and medium-income bracket, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), has open talks with State Governments in order to build robust collaboration.
To achieve this, FMBN solicited for stronger support and participation of States in the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme, provision of unencumbered land for the execution of strategic affordable housing schemes as well as support for the elimination of high cost and systemic bottlenecks to title perfection and Governor’s consent to mortgage transactions.
Speaking in Abuja recently, Ahmed Dangiwa, managing director/CEO of FMBN, made case for improved affordable housing partnership with State Governments during his briefing to the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) on the activities, programmes of the bank, said a statement signed by Ahmed Abubakar, group head, Corporate Communications, FMBN.
He asked state governments to reduce title perfection fees, which currently range from 5 percent to 10 percent to the flat rate of 0.5 percent for mortgage affordability and expeditious treatment of consent to mortgage transactions by Governors to improve turnaround time.
Dangiwa said the bank is strategically positioned to energise State Governments’ efforts to deliver affordable housing to their citizens in a sustainable and cost-effective manner.
He listed FMBN products to include NHF housing loan of up to N15 million payable over a 30-year period at interest rate of 6 percent per annum; and NHF individual construction loan at 9 percent interest rate per annum with a 15-year tenor.
“Others include rent-to-own scheme which allows beneficiaries to move into FMBN owned houses and payback in monthly installments over a 15-year period at single-digit interest rate with no equity requirement and the home renovation loans where up to N1 million is given to NHF contributors who already own their homes, to carry out necessary improvements and payback over five years,” he stated.
According to him, the provision for zero equity contributions for housing loans below N5 million and a maximum of 10 percent for loans from N5 million to N15 million, is an additional unique FMBN partnership advantages.
“The partnership will enable State Governments to take advantage of its strategic financing windows for real estate construction and decades-old institutional experience in social housing provisioning,” he said.
In soliciting the support and partnership of the State Governors, he stated that the current executive management has set the bank on a new path of reform, innovation, accountability, efficiency and high performance such that within the last three years, it has increased public sensitisation that has led to a spike in registered contributors to the NHF scheme to 5,026,777.
“Others were increased NHF collections totaling N134 billion to bring the cumulative since inception 26 years ago to N366 billion. The three-year performance represents 36 percent of total collections in the 26-year life span of the scheme as well as increased NHF refunds to retired contributors to the scheme totaling N21 billion within three years to bring the cumulative since inception to N32 billion,” he said.
Kayode Fayemi, chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and executive Governor of Ekiti State, thanked the FMBN boss for his insightful presentation.
He noted that Dangiwa has made a convincing case for the collaboration and that the Governors were keen to engage further with Federal Mortgage Bank as a strategic affordable housing partner.
