By Chris Ochayi
The Federal Government has ordered the management of Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN, to urgently retrieve the over N100 billion contribution to the National Housing Fund, NHF, being held up by various Ministries, Departments and Agencies and other organizations all over the country.

Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Hon. Nduese Essien who gave the marching order while inaugurating 8-member Board for FMBN, in Abuja, said the trapped funds was an essential ingredient that could boost the financial base of the bank for effective service delivery.

Worried by the current acute crisis in the housing sector, the minister charged that, “the Board must work hard to raise the level of the bank’s operations to be at par with similar institutions in other emerging economies.”

The minister noted that, “with the current housing deficit put at about 16 million and a rapidly growing population rate, Nigeria needs a more virile mortgage sector that can catch up with the spiraling trend.

He said “the board and management must explore other sources of funding and opportunities for partnership that could ginger the growth of the mortgage sub-sector and deliver cheap funds for massive home ownership.”

According to him, “efforts should also be made to promote urban and suburban home ownership instead of the tenancy regime that prevails in most parts of the cities. If people could purchase a house with a small initial outlay and modest monthly payments, then the economic barriers to homeownership would disappear for the majority of low income families in our country.

“In some countries with robust mortgage financing system, installment selling is the key to success and essential instrument for long term, high leverage, amortized first mortgage loan.”

He reminded the board, “the major aspect of your operations must be to stimulate the flow of home mortgage lending by encouraging the primary institutions to make more money available to builders and home buyers.”

“The solution to affordability mostly revolves around new financial mechanisms that would make it easier for home buyers to borrow funds while providing greater economic protection from mortgage lenders and investors.

“I wish to also encourage the board to consider new loan instruments including Alternative Mortgage Institutions, AMIs, to protect industry players from interest rate risk of future inflations.”