Despite the constraints trailing the establishment of the National Housing Fund (NHF), the Chairman, Board of Directors of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, (FMBN), Chief Bisi Ogunjobi, yesterday said the scheme has made tremendous progress in the last two years, with contributions hitting N22billion.
He said through the bank's aggressive pursuit of more contributory states, the scheme's contributions rose from N17bn in 2011 to N22bn in 2012, accounting for about 40 per cent of total collections since inception about 21 years ago.
Ogunjobi gave the statistics at a workshop in Abuja.
The workshop is part of the bank's strategic campaign aimed at enlightening the general public and the stakeholders on the role, rules and operations of the National Housing Fund in providing affordable housing to the people.
However, despite the gains of the last two years, the FMBN's board chairman lamented that the scheme had failed to achieve its set target as a window of housing provision in Nigeria.
Some of the limiting factors, according to him, are the failure of some states and organisations contribute to the scheme, lack of finance from the banks and insurance companies and poor management of the funds.
He said, "With the establishment of the NHF 21 years ago like a child it should have become an adult having reached the age of puberty and be eligible to vote and be voted for and ready to take on responsibility for building his or her own family. Unfortunately, the high hopes enshrined in the NHF Act have not all been realised.
"For example, while NHF is a mandatory contributory scheme for all Nigerian workers, to date not all states and organisations are contributors while the investments expected from the banks and insurance companies are none existent. At the same time, the management and performance of the Fund have been less than optimal."
Amidst these constraints, the chairman stressed that the focus of the bank is to increase the NHF base, coverage, collection, remittance and achieve overall efficiency and persuade the non-compliant states and organisations to join the scheme.
On the whole, Ogunjobi identified lack of access to funding, "difficulties with property registration; titling; the cost and time of foreclosing; high interest rate; and lack of housing supply new construction," as the major challenges confronting the housing sector.
The board chairman however, noted that as part of the bank's moves to broaden the bank's clientele base and create product varieties, efforts were on the way to introduce new products such as the Rentto- Own Housing Model and a Housing Scheme for Nigerians in Diaspora.
