FMBN to invest N40 billion in 5,000 housing units in 12 months

• Nigeria Police, public servants, fire service, NSCDC are beneficiaries In line with the Federal Government’s Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) plans to invest over N40 billion to deliver the construction of 5, 000 housing units in 12 months. Under the scheme, intended beneficiaries are Nigeria Police, public servants in the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) and Federal Ministry of Interior (fire service, correctional service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). Already, N9billion has been approved for Nigeria Police (1,250 units), N6 billion for FISH programmme (1,153) and N19 billion for Federal Ministry of Interior (2,032). President Muhammadu Buhari, set up the Economic Sustainability Committee (ESC) in March 2020, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to develop an economic sustainability plan to last until 2023. Among the component is support 1.5 million Nigerians to acquire low-cost houses under the Social Housing Programme (SHP) and the portal for application by prospective beneficiaries was launched in December 2020, alongside the prototype one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. The plan is to have a Rent-to-Own Option as part of Federal Government’s resolve to impact the common man in the social housing scheme expected to also generate 1.8 million jobs and deliver houses to about 1.5 million Nigerian families. Sites for projects were identified in all the six geo-political zones, including the Federal capital territory. Location for the scheme included Ekiti and Ogun in the South-West, Enugu and Abia in the South-East, Delta and Edo in the South-South, Yobe and Bauchi in the North-East, Kaduna and Katsina in the North-West and Nasarawa and Plateau in the North-Central as well as Abuja. Osinbajo said earlier this year that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has already committed an N200 billion facility to kick-start the social housing projects, with a guarantee by the Federal Government via the Finance Ministry. MEANWHILE, according to the FMBN scorecard, registered states increased form 29 to 34 states, while registered employers are 24, 988. Also, registered contributors to the national housing fund stands at 5,466,092 as at December 2021. NHF collections increased to N522,492,568, 467.88 and total loan approvals is N583,310,486,512.35, while loan disbursements stands at N333, 443,760,418. 32 since the inception of the NHF scheme in 1992. Refunds as of December is N50,417,734,072.79 and corporative societies NHF collections stand at N424,066,482. The statistics also show that about 33,774 housing units were supported under the scheme and 23,030 mortgage loans was given in the period under review. According to FMBN Managing Director, Ahmed Dangiwa, “we admit that a lot more work remains to be done and some targets are yet to be met. We have notched progress in our bid to reform and reposition the organisation, as a more business driven, efficient and impactful provider of affordable housing to Nigerians. “Out of the 21 abandoned projects that we inherited, we have taken five of them to completion, while several others are currently at the varying advanced stages of delivery across the country. We have worked hard to reduce the size of non-performing loans. FMBN had a non-performing loans portfolio of N122 billion.

Soiurce:Guardian.ng