This may indeed be described as the best of times for civil servants in Benue State as the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) commissions’ 100 housing units financed by the bank to deliver affordable housing. STEPHEN UBIMAGO reports
MR. Gimba Ya’u Kumo, managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), was in Benue State recently where he disclosed that the bank is set to finance more housing projects for civil servants in the State.
Kumo who gave this hint at the commissioning of Divine Shelter Development Company Estate, made up of 100 housing units financed by the bank in Makurdi, the state capital, said as the “food basket of the nation” with vast arable land for agriculture and housing/infrastructure development, the state deserves quantum investment in housing development.
To achieve this, Kumo solicited the support of the state governor, Gabriel Suswam. He urged him to order the immediate resumption of National Housing Fund (NHF) contributions by government workers in the state. He gave an assurance that on the part of FMBN, necessary measures will be taken to ensure that houses funded through the NHF are ultimately sold to eligible contributors to the NHF.
In response, Suswan promised immediate resumption of contributions to NHF by workers in the state, saying, contrary to what had happened in the past, where housing projects were hardly initiated or financed by the bank for the benefit of the state workers, the FMBN is now actually on ground as testified by the commissioning of Divine Shelter Housing Estate in the state.
The project was not only fully financed by the FMBN; it was targeted to ensure that civil servants in the state are the major beneficiaries. He therefore asked Kumo to discuss with the head of civil service of the state and the state labour officials to sort out all problems for immediate resumption of NHF deduction/remittance in the state.
The governor pledged to provide soft loan for each NHF contributor in the state civil service to enable the payment of the 10 per cent personal stake required by estate developers as initial deposit for the houses.
The FMBN was established in 1956, known then as the Nigerian Building Society (NBS), a joint venture of the Commonwealth Development Corporation and the federal and eastern governments of Nigeria. Following the introduction of the Indigenisation Policy, the Federal government, by Indigenisation Act 1973, undertook 100 percent ownership acquisition of the NBS and consequently renamed it the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN).
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. It started the management and administration of the contributory savings scheme known as the National Housing Fund (NHF) established by Act 3 of 1992, which is a pool that mobilises long-term funds from Nigerian workers, banks, insurance companies and the federal government to advance loans at soft interest rates to its contributors.
Over the years FMBN has been encouraging the emergence and growth of viable primary mortgage institutions to service the need of housing delivery in all parts of the country. To this end it has been mobilising both domestic and offshore funds into the housing sector, linking the capital market with the housing industry; establishing and operating a viable secondary mortgage market to support the primary mortgage market, among others.
The banks overall mandate is to promote the delivery of affordable and modern houses to Nigerians.