Minister threatens to unleash EFCC on NHF defaulters

By Yinka Kolawole

The Minister of Land, Housing and Urban Development, Chief Nduese Essien, has threatened the use of all available legal means, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure that un-remitted monies deducted from workers’ salaries to the National Housing Fund (NHF) are fully recouped from defaulting agencies.

Speaking at an NUJ organised forum recently in Abuja, beamed live on national television, Essien lamented the non-remittance of money deducted from workers’ salaries to the fund by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government. He noted that the MDAs are owing the fund nothing less than N100 billion, for which deductions have already been made from workers’ salaries.

The minister also berated state governments for not responding positively to the NHF scheme, noting however, that some state governors such as Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and lately, Lagos have either indicated interest to return or in some cases have commenced contribution to the fund.

He largely attributed the apparent inability of the NHF scheme to bring succour to civil servants and private sector workers who desire to own houses of their own after retirement to the inefficiency in the FMBN, which was expected to provide the leadership direction along the line.

“In 2010, there was no framework and adequate funding. The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), which should lead in that aspect was not in the proper position to do so until we re-organised it, turned it into an efficient and profit-oriented organisation, which I believe is poised to carry out its duties. Similarly, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) has since been re-positioned to be actively involved in the delivery of housing for Nigerians,” he stated.

Essien identified lack of basic infrastructure as one of the main reasons for the failure of government’s housing programmes, adding that with the new efforts of government to collaborate with the private sector, the dream of providing decent housing is not far fetched. He disclosed that the federal government had been able to acquire some parcels of land to commence some housing projects, noting that similar experiences in the past was not successful because it was discovered that the land so acquired in the 1970s were not paid for, resulting in encroachments on such lands by the original owners since they were not paid compensation or the state governments of the affected states re-acquired the lands for other uses.

According to him, government has made a budgetary provision of up to N1 billion in the 2011 budget to acquire more land, underscoring its desire to be directly involved in providing infrastructure for houses in its “Site and Services” schemes and give them to the private sector to build and sell to Nigerians at affordable rates to augment government’s efforts.

“We also believe that this latest efforts would enable Nigerians to live in suburbs in order to de-congest the urban slums. To demonstrate our commitment the FHA has started building houses in the last two months and we have to challenge state governments to continue to provide land to the federal government to build more houses.

The minister also disclosed that the federal government is contemplating imposing levies on owners of unoccupied government houses within the states, to not only checkmate insecurity, but also discourage the activities of those who purchase properties from government and later resell same for exorbitant prices.