By Chris Ochayi, Abuja

Determined to actualise the social housing scheme for the less privileged in the society, the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms. Amal Pepple has ordered the management of Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN, to explore ways of providing houses for the generality of Nigerians as a social scheme.

Pepple, who gave the order when she paid a working visit to headquarters of the apex mortgage bank in Abuja, said she was determined to correct the impression being held by many Nigerians that the provision of mass houses at cheaper prices is not feasible.

The Minister who stated that social housing scheme is workable in the country, however charged the FMBN team to work towards providing quality houses at affordable prices for Nigeria’s teeming population.

Ms Pepple said the directive to FMBN was a measure aimed at reducing the 16 million housing deficit the country is currently grappling with. She was optimistic that the deficit is reducing.

She lauded the efforts of the FMBN management to increase participation in the National Housing Fund NHF, by bringing more states to contribute to the scheme and implored them to continue with the efforts in order to enable more Nigerians benefit from the housing scheme.

Currently, about 12 states are not contributing to the National Housing Fund, a Federal Government’s housing scheme administered by the FMBN, which provides housing loans at 6 per cent to eligible contributors.

Ms Pepple said the ministry has created a site in Kuje, Abuja for prototype houses in the Federal Capital Territory.

The Ministry, she said, uses the site for experimentation whereby a real estate developer who claims that he can build a three-bedroom house in five days for instance, would be allowed to build the house at the site.

The ministry would inspect the house on completion to ascertain the quality and the cost, in order to improve the quality of residential houses for Nigerians.

Mr. Mike Nwogbo, an executive director who represented the FMBN managing director, Mr. Gimba Ya’u Kumo, said the apex mortgage bank is working towards improving the housing stock in Nigeria.

The Bank according to him, is sourcing mortgage funds through the NHF as well as through the capital market.

Nwogbo said the FMBN has through the NHF, collected N73.6 billion from contributors as at July, 2011, while N72.4 billion has been disbursed for housing finance also as at July 2011.

Similarly the Bank has since its inception, approved a housing loan totalling N140.3 billion. He explained that the relatively low disbursement level is largely due to the inadequacy of available funds to meet the teeming housing needs of Nigerians. Nwogbo said the Bank has been able to finance the building of not less than 57,794 housing units with the disbursed funds during the period.

The houses include 9,535 non-essential Federal Government residential houses which the FMBN refinanced in 2007 through a N26 billion mortgage-backed bonds floated in the capital market to enable federal civil servants to buy the houses in Abuja, during the implementation of the Federal Government’s monetisation policy.