By YINKA KOLAWOLE

Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) have agreed to work together to ensure that more workers subscribe to the National Housing Fund (NHF) scheme.

This was made known when the board of FMBN led by its Chairman, Mr. Bisi Ogunjobi, visited officials of NLC led by its President, Comrade Abdulwahed Omar, in Abuja.

NHF is a scheme introduced by the federal government, to which all public servants and employees in the organised private sector within the country are expected to contribute 2.5 percent of their monthly salary through FMBN, which manages the Fund.

Ogunjobi said the bank is looking for ways to work with various groups in the labour sub-sector in the quest to perform its statutory function of facilitating housing finance. “We want to look at various labour groups like teachers, nurses and various sub-sector of labour groups and work with them on how best to serve them.

You would recall that early this, we set a joint tax force top look at this issue. We should be getting the report by the end of this month. It would be a good opportunity for us to see how we can collectively work on the report to realise the objective of not only the bank, but that of the labour congress,” he stated.

The FMBN chairman said the bank had begun the process of restructuring with a view to harnessing the needed resources for housing provision in the country. “We need to review our policies. We want to make an impact and for us to measure the impact on the provision of houses in the country.

For us to be able to do that, we need to be able to mobilise resources both from inside and outside the country. To achieve that, we need to look at our structure and see how we re-engineer ourselves to reinforce the weak areas and enhance the good areas to be able to deliver on the mandate,” he said.

In his response, Omar said with the renewed focus of the board and management of FMBN, the congress may prevail on its members who had been skeptical about the housing contributory scheme. “I want to assure you that, as long as you continue to progress in the right direction, we will continue to partner with you.

I recall that at a certain stage, congress stood against the issue of NHF deductions. Despite the fact that the scheme is a Federal Government policy, we felt people should have right to their own money and properties. We were of the view that it would amount to injustice for people to contribute money without houses being provided for them.

“But now that we are seeing evidences that things are working, we will discuss with the state governments to convince them to make their contributions. There is no doubting the fact that the workers are the most critical stakeholders in this business. I do know that when you are talking about housing provision, what readily comes to mind is housing to workers because they are the ones with formal connection,” he asserted.

In a related development, the Borno State government has approved the deduction and remission of NHF contributions of the state workers with effect from May 2013.