By Oscarline Onwuemenyi

ABUJA — The Managing Director, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Gimba Yau’ Kumo has asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to probe Federal Government’s non-remittance of National Housing Fund, NHF to it as stipulated in the NHF Act.

The FMBN boss who put the cumulative collections by the apex mortgage institution at N72billion from 3.6million registered contributors, explained that the bank lost over N100billion through dubious and unlawful practices by some employers.

Kumo spoke at an event in which FMBN signed a Memorandum of Understanding,MoU with the EFCC for the provision of shelter for the anti-graft agency’s staff.

He told the EFCC chairman, Mrs. Farida Waziri that the flagrant violation of the NHF Act by a number of employers was derailing the scheme’s quest to provide affordable mass housing to the people.

“The biggest challenge of the NHF as a laudable scheme to provide affordable mass housing to low and medium income Nigerians is that flagrant violation of the NHF Act by a number of employers,” Kumo lamented.

According to the FMBN boss, some of the sharp practices employed by employers include: citing illegal directives from labour unions as an excuse to avoid monthly deductions of NHF contributions from workers’ pay, failure to remit workers’ contributions to the FMBN after deductions or putting funds into other uses to the detriment of both the bank and the Nigerian workers.

The sharp practices also include failure to provide remittance schedules showing details of individual contributions under which guise, unscrupulous employers withhold part of the deductions.

He added that even though the management had developed NHF E-Collection platform to deal with the employers’ sharp practices, the bank would need the assistance of the anti-graft agency in the enforcement of the provisions of the NHF Act.

“To supplement our efforts, we use this opportunity to solicit partnership with the EFCC in the enforcement of the provisions of the NHF Act by employers of labour in the public and private sectors. They are required by law to effect the deduction of 2.5 per cent from workers’ monthly income and remit to FMBN within 30 days of such deductions,” he said.

While calling for the intervention of the commission to arrest the drift, he explained that the investigation the bank carried out on some companies and the deductions they made from workers’ salaries, prompted the Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) to issue a circular early in the year, directing its member-organisations to resume compliance with the provisions of the Act.