Victor Ahiuma- Young
FEW days ago, stakeholders made up of union leaders, human resource managers, and management of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN, gathered in Lagos, at a one-day interactive session organized by the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, NECA, to find ways of quickening affordable housing scheme for workers.

Welcoming participants to the event, Director-General of NECA, Mr. Segun Oshinowo, recalled that after organized labour agreed to resume participation in the National Housing Fund, NHF, the association passed the resolutions to member companies to follow up with necessary action.

Mr. Oshinowo who was represented by NECA’s Head of Social, Economic and Labour Affairs, Mr. Timothy Olawale said member companies continued to raise issues in spite of the explanations by NECA, saying “we decided to bring representatives of employers, the banks for the interaction to address issues of concern towards affordable housing scheme for workers. We want members to speak directly with the management of the banks instead of us.”

Oshinowo, added that to make houses available to Nigerians, various stakeholders including governments must collaborate, saying the current national housing deficit was unacceptable.

Speaking, Managing Director of FMBN, Mr. Gimba Kumo, lamented the challenges that confronted his management on assumption of office.

Represented by the Executive Director, Loans, Mr. Bola Ogunshola, Mr. Kumo said one of the challenges, was that there was no complete records of contributions and their contributors

According to him, to address the challenge, the management deployed a technology known as E-collection where contributors would be issued with E-cards like Automatic Teller Machine, ATM cards that contributors could use to among others, monitor contributions.

Presenting a paper at the event, Special Assistant to the Managing Director of the bank, Oladapo Fakaye, said N76, 571 billion loans had so far been disbursed for various housing projects.

He gave a breakdown of the loans as follows: Estate development, N39, 425; NHF mortgage, N23, 396 and mortgages financed via mortgage banks N13, 750.

Break in momentum

However, recalling circumstances leading to organized labour’s withdrawal and resumption of contribution into the NHF, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, faulted the sluggishness in housing delivery, warning that this unacceptable pace in delivery of houses to contributors to the fund, could again strain labour’s fragile re-union with the managers of the fund.

Speaking through its Head of Information Department, Benson Upah, the NLC said although the FMBN in keeping with its promise of commissioning pilot housing schemes to woo workers had completed a housing project in Katsina, this was a far cry in view of the housing gap in the country.

He warned that “a break in momentum of delivering the houses could be dangerous to the fragile re-union of the NLC with the NHF scheme”, decrying frequent changes of ministers of housing which he said could lead to inconsistency in policy implementation.

Recalling NLC National Executive Council, NEC, meeting that endorsed workers resumption of participation in the NHF, Upah said the “NEC-in-session noted that its decisions were informed by the positive changes in the bank by its Managing Director, Mr Gimba Kumo, which include improved housing delivery to workers, the readiness of the bank to collaborate with the Nigeria Labour Congress and other core stakeholders to provide more affordable, livable and durable houses to workers; restructuring of the bank to accommodate the interests of major stakeholders such as NLC and TUC; and the amendment of the Act establishing the Bank to increase its capital base as well as remove restrictions that make access to houses difficult.

Confidence building

“As part of the process of confidence-building, transparency and hitch-free operation, the NEC-in-session also resolved that: The Federal Mortgage Bank makes the necessary effort to update the records of past contributions by workers; FMBN in line with the spirit of electronic banking, should ensure contributors receive notification of transactions; a functional committee comprising FMBN, Government and Workers be set up in each state.”

The head of information said “On November 15, 2013, these decisions were formally conveyed to FMBN, heralding a new chapter in the relationship between the Bank and the workers after over a decade. Although, we at the NLC do not want to hold brief for the bank, it seems the frequent changes at the ministerial level seem to be affecting the spirit of momentum and continuity.

The mortality rate of CEOs at the bank has been quite high. This has affected the good intentions of some of the CEOs as well as frustrated the execution of their programmes. There is therefore need for security of tenure for the CEO. The on-going amendment of the FMBN Act provides a good opportunity to reflect this.

“Land reforms are key to successful housing delivery. With land being a source of wealth and political patronage at both state and federal levels of government, it will be interesting how far these reforms can go. We at NLC believe land belongs to the people and the citizenry should have reasonably free and unfettered access to it. It is not and should never be a personal estate of the President, Minister or Governor.

The reform NLC looks up to in the housing sector should at once be all-encompassing, people­-driven and caters for the interest of rural dwellers, those out of work and indigent old people.”

World Bank loan

Upah lamented that “recently, the government secured a $300 million World Bank loan to set up a Mortgage Refinance Company, MRC, which is expected to open up the housing sector.

While it will increase liquidity in the sector and probably create an enabling environment for public-private partnership, we have our fears and suspicions. We believe MRC is pure business for high net-worth individuals and will cater for little or no interest of workers. Globally, mortgage rates are a single digit but not in Nigeria. Here, Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) have a penchant for charging double digits making it difficult for prospective mortgagees to access houses.