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FMBN gives N100.5bn for housing projects

By on August 11, 2014

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria has disbursed a sum of N100.5bn for building projects under the National Housing Fund, according to a document obtained from the bank.

The NHF is a Federal Government scheme in which every Nigerian above the age of 21 in paid employment is entitled to a low interest government-funded loan for a housing project.

Members of the scheme contribute 2.5 per cent of their monthly salary to the fund through the FMBN.

The maximum amount obtainable under the NHF has been increased from N5m to N15m and the borrowed capital is repayable over a maximum of 30 years at the rate of six per cent interest.

The document also showed that through the disbursements, the FMBN had been able to deliver 56,000 houses.

Findings revealed that currently, the NHF had about 3,77 million contributors and it would require 50 contributors to make N500 monthly for 10 years before the bank would be able to provide a loan of N15m for one individual.

A breakdown of the disbursements showed that the bank approved the NHF loans of about N90bn out of which only N39bn or about 22 per cent had been disbursed while N110bn was approved under the Estate Development Loans of which only N62bn or 52 per cent was disbursed.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, FMBN, Mr. Gimba Ya’u Kumo, while confirming the development, told our correspondent in Abuja that since the commencement of the NHF, the bank had been able to collect a total of N106bn.

He said, “Since the NHF commenced, we have been able to collect a total of N106bn.

“Contributors to the NHF have in the last six months had been paid over N9bn either as refunds or as funds to assist them to own their homes.

“We have been paying contributors and in the last six months, we have disbursed over N9bn to them. We have disbursed to over 57 Primary Mortgage Institutions.”

He also said out of the total number of houses delivered, 46 per cent to 52 per cent were done by the current management of the bank in the last two years, while N1.6bn, representing 1.58 per cent of the total collections, was refunded to retirees.

The FMBN boss urged the Federal Government to increase the share capital of the bank from its present N5bn to N200bn to enable it to address the housing deficit in the country.

According to him, the bank will soon commence a Diaspora mortgage model to enable Nigerians residing in foreign countries to own houses in the country without encumbrances.

Kumo noted that the Nigeria Diaspora Loan Scheme was developed in order to broaden the delivery channels for mass housing through the NHF scheme.

The FMBN, he added, was currently concluding arrangements on how to secure an international payment gateway through which the funds would be channelled.

He said, “We realised that about 17 million Nigerians are living outside the country and most of them have plans to own houses and they have not been able to do so.

“What we are trying to do is that by the time we develop the diaspora mortgage model, it will be a model whereby Nigerians living abroad who want to buy houses can resort to FMBN and at the end of the day if they do not take the mortgage, they can get refund of their money with interest.

“The inflow of diaspora money to Nigeria is about $10bn. If the housing sector takes about 25 per cent of that inflow, we are expecting that about $2.5bn dollars is coming to us in the form of inflow from diaspora people that would need houses and investments in the housing sector.

“That would translate to about N400bn and with that we can fund mortgages and build about 30,000 units and that would be an opportunity for those who would want to have houses in Nigeria.”

Kumo gave the total value of the real estate market in Nigeria as N59tn, noting that this was six times bigger than the local stock market, valued at N12tn.

 

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