The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria has disbursed N2.6 billion to 334, 000 beneficiaries under its intervention housing loan through the Federal Staff Housing Loan scheme.
The Managing Director of the bank Mr. Ahmed Dangiwa, made this known on Wednesday in Abuja.
He spoke when he received the Executive Secretary of Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, Mrs. Hannatu Fika, who paid him a courtesy visit.
“As the Federal Government tries to provide cost effective and affordable housing for civil servants, it is pertinent to note that a total sum of N2.6 billion has so far been disbursed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria to 334,000 beneficiaries through the Federal Staff Housing loan.
“I am also indeed very pleased with the remarkable results that we have been able to achieve in the Home Renovation Loan,’’ Dangiwa said.
According to him, the Home Renovation Loan was one of several products of the bank aimed at ensuring contributors to the National Housing Fund benefited ofrom the scheme.
He stated that the FMBN Home Renovation Loan was created for the purpose of renovating existing structures at six per cent for tenure of five years maximum.
Dangiwa said the bank remained determined to provide affordable mortgages to Nigerian workers as part of its initiatives to complement President Muhammadu Buhari’s housing sector reforms.
He said that the bank had also launched what it called the Cooperative Housing Development Loan, CHDL, that would enable a cooperative society that had acquired a plot of land to develop houses for allocation to its members.
Dangiwa said that the loan was expected to give a vast majority of economically disadvantaged Nigerians who constituted the informal sector, the opportunity to have decent homes of their own.
According to him, the bank was grossly undercapitalised compared to the situation in other countries.
Mortgage bank MD said that capitalisation was key to the success of the bank and appealed to the government to hasten the process to improve the capital base of the bank.
“The bank’s capitalisation is below five billion naira so we need about N500 billion which will create a lot of impact to the bank; we will be able to create more affordable mortgages and many more,’’ he said.
Fika said that for the past four years the board had had a good partnership with the bank.
She said that the bank had done well on the renovation loan which had helped civil servants to renovate many of their homes.
She said that the board had been working hard to ensure that public servants owned their own homes.
Fika said that the renovation loan scheme had been successful, adding that the scope would be expanded into a scheme tagged, ‘Rent to Own.’
She explained that bank would build the houses, allocate them to staff who were entitled and they would begin to pay rent on their own homes, which they would own on completion of paying for the cost of the houses.
NAN
