FMBN disburses N7billion loans to 800 beneficiaries

•44,370 housing fund contributors gets refunds
The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), has disbursed more than N7billion as mortgage loan to over 800 beneficiaries this year, as part of efforts towards bridging the housing deficit currently put at 17 million.

Further, in respect of the National Housing Fund (NHF) contributions, the Bank said it has made a total refund payment of N6.6billion to 44,370 beneficiaries in 2017 against a cumulative figure of N7.4billion as at 2016.

The Managing Director, FMBN, Ahmed Dangiwa, gave the statistics on Wednesday, while speaking at a two-day management retreat of the bank, with the theme: “Towards improving FMBN transaction turnaround time.”

The retreat is meant to review the bank’s current processes and procedures, and to recommend strategies that will translate into considerable reduction in time, costs incurred in the processing of transactions.

He expressed optimism on the future growth of the NHF, citing that due to strategic engagements, several non-contributing states had indicated interest to rejoin the scheme in the first quarter of 2018.

Dangiwa also said the focus of the bank on its loan projects is to ensure that completion of ongoing projects and recover its financial outlay presently tied down.

“This, we have done aggressively with over N2.4billion recovered so far this year against a cumulative figure of N8.3billion as at 2016. The bank is also micromanaging some of the estates to forestall diversion of funds and ensure we recover our loans”, he said, were measures being taken to protect the bank and its investments.

The FMBN boss decried that since assumption of office in April, the management was confronted with daunting challenges. These include absence of audited account for the past five years, lack of proper automation of the bank’s operations, abandonment/uncompleted projects with huge non-performing loan and undercapitalisation and creation of parallel platforms for financing home ownership by Central Bank of Nigeria instead of providing institutional support for FMBN.

While declaring the event open, the Minister of State II for Power, Works and Housing, Suleiman Hassan Zarma, in an address on: “Driving Housing Delivery in Nigeria: Current Initiatives and Policies,” noted that FMBN being the apex mortgage institution occupied a central position in the housing sector.

He declared that the challenges of national housing deficit, dearth of long term funding, and high cost of delivering affordable housing to Nigerians placed enormous responsibilities on the bank.

He said: “The greatest challenge of the bank is to ensure adequate liquidity, develop the secondary mortgage market and promote home ownership among Nigerians through reasonable mortgage financing,” citing that the present administration awarded contracts for the construction of 2,736 housing units across the states in 2016.