Operators of primary mortgage banks (PMBs) in Nigeria, under the aegis of Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria (MBAN), have opposed a call to scrap the National Housing Fund (NHF) scheme due to its apparent inefficiency at facilitating the provision of affordable housing to Nigerians.

In a letter to the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms. Ama Pepple, MBAN is rather advocating for re-engineering of the scheme to deliver faster benefits to contributors and beneficiaries as well as reducing processing time from submission of applications to disbursement to about 120 days.

The mortgage bankers wrote the letter in response to the reported plan to scrap the NHF scheme, purportedly made by the Minister for Labour and Productivity at a meeting with the Joint National Public Service Negotiation Council.

They noted that the scheme cannot be scrapped without the approval of the Federal Executive Council, through an Executive Bill to the National Assembly to that effect because, according to them, the NHF Scheme is an Act of the National Assembly.

MBAN noted in the letter that the purported plan to scrap the scheme has generated a lot of anxiety with the PMBs already inundated with calls from the depositor-public on the situation. “We are quite aware of, and are willing to support all meaningful steps to re-structure and re-invigorate the NHF scheme to achieve its long term objectives and goal of providing affordable housing to Nigerians,” it stated.

The mortgage bankers in the letter jointly signed by its President, Mr. Abimbola Olayinka and Executive Secretary, Mr. Kayode Omotoso recalled: “This same scenario reared its ugly head in the 1990’s before the advent of democracy, when labour agitated for scrapping of the scheme.

However, when the democratically elected government of President Olusegun Obasanjo took over in 1999, noble steps were taken by the Presidential Technical Committee on Housing and Urban Development, under the Chairmanship of Prof Akin Mabogunje, which made passionate appeal to labour and put in place the re-structuring of the scheme.”

This latest development is coming against the backdrop of a World Bank report on Financial Services Sector (FSS) 2020 on the mortgage and housing finance sector in Nigeria, which noted that the NHF scheme is an inefficient and regressive model for allocation of resources; recommending that it either be abolished or intensively reformed.