APPARENTLY disturbed that the National Housing Fund (NHF) is not achieving its long-term objectives and goal of providing affordable housing to Nigerians, mortgage operatives have advocated for restructuring of the scheme.The operatives, acting under that aegis of Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria (MBAN) are demanding amongst others, the re-engineering of the scheme to deliver faster benefits to contributors and beneficiaries as well as reducing processing time from submission of applications to disbursement to about 120 days.Coming on the heels of the World Bank report on Financial Services Sector (FSS) 2020 on the Mortgage, housing Finance Sector in Nigeria, that regarded the NHF scheme as an in-efficient and regressive model for allocation of resources; and that it should either be abolished or intensively reformed.The report also sought for a coordinated and concerted approach to supply of housing through urban-planning strategies, that might involve estate developments comprising of high rise buildings, for instance, five to six buildings as a strategic step towards reducing the housing deficit of between 10 -12million, within a short time.Specifically, MBAN in a letter to the Minister Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms. Ama Pepple, obtained by The Guardian on the reportedly plan to scrap the NHF scheme, purportedly made by the Minister for Labour and Productivity at his meeting held with the Joint National Public Service Negotiation Council (NJPSNC), said that scheme cannot be scrapped without the tacit approval of Federal Executive Council, through an Executive Bill to the National Assembly to that effect, 'because the NHF Scheme is an Act of the National Assembly.'The letter jointly signed by MBAN President, Mr. Abimbola Olayinka and Executive Secretary, Kayode Omotoso recalled: 'This same scenario reared its ugly head in the 1990's before the advent of democracy, when labour agitated for scrapping of the scheme. However, when the democratically elected Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo took over in 1999, noble steps were taken by the Presidential Technical Committee on Housing and Urban Development under the Chairmanship of Prof Akin Mabogunje, which made passionate appeal to labour and put in place the re-structuring of the scheme.'MBAN disclosed that Primary Mortgage Banks are already inundated with calls from the depositor-public on the situation. 'We are quite aware of, and are willing to support all meaningful steps to re-structure and re-invigorate the NHF scheme to achieve its long term objectives and goal of providing affordable housing to Nigerians.'But senior officials of FMBN debunked insinuations that the scheme may be scrapped. 'NHF Scheme has made homeowners, over 61,000 Nigerians contributing to the NHF through the financing of housing estates and affordable mortgage loans spread throughout all states of the Federation based on cumulative loan disbursements of N83.2 billion as at January 2012.FMBN said: 'In addition, a number of housing estates funded with NHF contributions are under construction in the six geo-political zones and will be completed within the next 24 months. In order to ensure transparency and accountability in the management of NHF contributions, the FMBN has introduced a number of measures, one being the publication of NHF mortgage loan beneficiaries and individuals whose contributions are refunded upon meeting requirements for same as stipulated by the NHF Act.'Only about 3.6 million workers are presently registered under the Scheme. This falls far short of the projected 50 million income earners required by law to contribute to the Scheme. Invariably, workers who flout the law by failing to register and contribute to the NHF cannot access the loan. To expand the coverage of the Scheme, FMBN last December launched the Informal Sector Housing Cooperative Loan Scheme to cater for the non-salaried informal sector operators who constitute as high as 85 per cent of the working population of the country.'To overcome the challenges some contributors face in accessing records of NHF contributions, the FMBN management said it has introduced an NHF e-collection platform, which enables contributors access their account balances on-line and receive real-time SMS alerts when the Bank receives their monthly contributions. In addition, each contributor will receive an NHF e-card compatible with any ATM machine from which they can view up-to-date records of their NHF contributions.
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