106 Rivers Civil Servants get N350M Housing Loan

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) says it has given home ownership opportunity to some civil servants in Rivers State with the disbursement of N350 million housing loan to them.

The civil servants, 106 in number, are National Housing Fund (NHF) contributors.

Okosun Victor Enaholo, deputy general manager, FMBN, who disclosed this while briefing the new Rivers head of service, said apart from the 106 beneficiaries, another batch of 53 candidates would soon collect N168 million mortgage loan.

“Over N2 billion has so far been contributed by public servants in Rivers State since the inception of the scheme in November, 2004, while N12 million has been refunded to 395 retirees with an interest of 2 percent since 2005,” he said.

Enaholo, however, pointed out that non-issuance of payment schedule along with monthly deductions by the office of the Accountant General during the e-payment era had been a major hindrance to the smooth operation of the scheme in the state.

Earlier, the Labour Union in the state had complained about difficulties experienced by public servants in accessing loans from the FMBN and non-refund of contributions to retirees. Others recounted experience in trying to access loan from the FMBN and non-refund of their contributions at retirement.

Meanwhile, the second meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development ended in Port Harcourt recently with the unveiling of a new housing finance policy that is backed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The new finance policy is for the purpose of developing “a facility aimed at significantly scaling up access to mortgages for the benefit of the Nigeria people,” he said.

Ama Pepple, minister of lands, housing and urban development, presented the National Housing Policy and National Urban Development Policies to the public at the meeting.

She recalled a housing finance roundtable with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the minister of finance, early in the year, saying that plans were under way to establish a committee comprising the CBN and other two international bodies to fast track the housing policy.

The minister said that Nigeria needed to build 1 million housing units annually for the next 20 years to be able to close its 16 million housing demand-supply gap.