Gov Shettima’s housing engagement
The National Housing Fund is a housing finance scheme managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN). With this development, Borno State can now access the fund to develop more houses, in addition to Governor Kashim’s Shettima Ali Monguno Teachers’ Village (380 units), Legacy Garden estate and the proposed 2500 housing units.I am personally […]
The National Housing Fund is a housing finance scheme managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN). With this development, Borno State can now access the fund to develop more houses, in addition to Governor Kashim’s Shettima Ali Monguno Teachers’ Village (380 units), Legacy Garden estate and the proposed 2500 housing units.
I am personally involved in the struggle to get Borno State government rejoin the scheme. As Zonal Coordinator North East from 2004-2007 we reached out to government officials, NLC and influential individuals to prevail on the chief executive and labour leaders but met brick walls. We organized sensitization workshops to stakeholders but all to no avail.We hopelessly and painfully watched other states reap the benefit of the scheme.
Virtually all the states of the federation have benefitted from NHF. In the Northeast, the following states have either through their housing corporations or estate developers built or have on-going housing projects financed through NHF: Adamawa (493 houses), Yobe State (1056 houses), Bauchi (2159 houses), Gombe (2340 houses) and Taraba (278 houses). It was reported that as at March 2013, the bank has disbursed over N100bn under the NHF window to over 73,676 contributors. Sadly, Borno has lost out.
Workers in Borno State service have also missed the opportunity of compulsory savings offered by the NHF scheme for which contributors get refund on exit from service.
Now that the state has joined the scheme, I wish to use this forum to offer Governor Shettima some advice:
1. Set up a state owned Pri-mary Mortgage Institution (PMI). It is the conduit through which contributors would access the NHF loan. The Federal Govern-ment plans to set up Mortgage Refinance Company, which may be used to partially capitalize the PMIs. PMIs may benefit from the long anticipated mortgage intervention fund expected from CBN. Borno should not stay aloof.
2. The state government can sale off its houses to NHF contributors. FMBN will pay for interested contributors and the funds can be reinvested (seed funding) into more housing projects in the state.
3. The governor can identify and empower indigenous busi-nessmen/women interested in estate development to access loan from the bank for the purpose of housing development. The state should facilitate the provision of suitable land and infrastructure to such developers.
4. The state must key in to the Federal Government’s mass housing project without delay.
5. The state can partner with NGOs like Shelter Afrique, UN Habitat and other local ones to help the state develop its housing sector.
6. It is in the interest of the state to free and liberalize land ownership. The difficulty in obtai-ning title deed has a setback on housing development, mortgage and business in general.
Mustapha Bukar Sabo, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria ([email protected])