BY CHARLES KUMOLU

IN a country of about 160 million people with gross housing deficit of about 16 million, there are growing worries over the future of the housing sector in Nigeria.

This anxiety was borne out of the country’s past failure at making millions of Nigerians home owners. Apart from the non-availability of land as a result of  the Land Use Act of 1978, dearth of housing finance has been fingered as the greatest factor inhibiting the provision of shelter for the Nigerian masses.

A Housing Estates in Lagos

Not even the National Housing Fund, NHF, which came into being via Decree No. 3 of 1992, to provide cheap loanable funds to those who want to build or buy their own houses, has made any significant positive impact.   Nigeria has a total of 102 primary mortgage institutions, PMIs and each of these PMIs has a capital base of N100 million.

Perhaps this need for affordable shelter for the nation’s growing population informed the decision by President Goodluck Jonathan to recognise the provision of accessible and affordable housing as one of the strategic national imperatives for guaranteeing the well-being and productivity of the citizenry.

In achieving this, the Federal Government and the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development are ensuring that the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN, is meeting up with its mandate of developing a robust mortgage finance system for the country.

Accordingly, it was gathered that the Bank operates as an effective vehicle for increasing the mobilisation of long-term funds, lending volume and expansion of mortgage lending services to all segments of the Nigerian population.

Investigations into the activities of FMBN by Vanguard Homes&Property indicated that amid some criticisms against the performances of the Bank, some successes are being recorded to meet up with the President’s Transformation Agenda.

Disclosing this, an Abuja based Estate Surveyor and Valuer and Managing Director of Batta Homes, Alhaji Hassan Dambatta, said that despite the capital intensive nature of building or owning a property, the sector has witnessed significant achievements through the influence of government policies and key stakeholders.

‘‘Under the leadership of Mallam Gimba Ya’u Kumo as head of the FMBN,   the housing sector has witnessed significant achievements through the influence of government policies and key stakeholders. These policy changes have led to significant growth in the mortgage sector and aroused the interests of several international investors. But this would not have been possible without the vision of the President, who truly desires housing for all,’’ he noted.

He further said: ‘’The Federal Government has showed commitment to revolutionalise the housing sector by translating the National Housing Policy and National Urban Development Policy into a roadmap for housing development in the country’’.

Still disclosing efforts at meeting up with housing demands, Dambatta said: ‘’Today, there is large scale automation of the Bank’s operation to eliminate inefficiencies of the previous manual mode of operations; expansion of the coverage of mortgage services to the informal sector which constitutes about 85 per cent of the Nigerian working population; and reversal of the loss returns which has been the trend for over 56 years of the Bank’s operations.’’

In addition, he said: ‘’Arising from this, it is on record that within 30 months in office, this management’s performance accounts for over 53% of cumulative NHF collections of N110.79 since 1992. Refund of NHF contributions grew by 196% from N990m to N1.94b within 30 months. This is attributed to a 7,527% increase in the rate of monthly refunds from N440, 000 to N33 million.’’

Capital market operations
Further checks also indicated that as at December 2010, only one transaction was recorded by the Bank in the capital market being Series 1 – Mortgage-Backed Bond (MBB) N26 billion issued in May 2006.

‘’Between December 2010 and April 2013 however, two additional issuances under the MBB transaction totalling N32 billion were successfully concluded. These are: Series 2 – MBB N6 billion issued in April 2013 and Series 3 – MBB N26 billion issued in April 2013 (to refinance Series 1,’’ a report titled: Housing for All through Mortgage Banking Alternative stated”.

In addition, the report said: ‘’Over the 30 months under review, N26.3 billion and N18.5 billion were disbursed as estate development (construction) and mortgage loans, respectively. This translates to 41.8% and 42%, respectively of the cumulative loans of N62.7 billion and N44 billion recorded in 257 months since commencement of the NHF Scheme. By aggregation, the total disbursement of N44.8 billion recorded in the past 30 months constitutes 42% of the N106.7 billion to date.’’

The reported concluded thus: ‘’The quantum of EDLs delivered 37,020 housing units, of which 10,015 [27%] was in the last 30 months. In addition, the quantum of approved NHF loans to deliver 21,974 mortgages, of which 6,800 [31%] were in the last 30 months”.