Govt tasks new executive management team of FMBN

THE Federal Government has inaugurated a new Executive Management Team for the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN).

   Speaking at the inauguration, Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Akon Eyakenyi; explained that the essence of reconstituting the Executive Management team of the bank is to reinvigorate and effectively reposition it to meet the present and future challenges and make it a leader in the housing finance/mortgage sub-sector.  

    Eyakenyi who expressed satisfaction with the achievements of the bank in the last five years, stressed the need to consolidate on the strides made by the bank to ensure that FMBN continues to thrive in the midst of uncertainties.

She urged the new management to confront present day challenges and transform the bank to a world-class institution.

   She said: “I expect that you will be the change agents to institute a sustainable new high performance culture in the FMBN anchored on a robust strategy that is aligned with performance, enterprise, excellence, innovation, quality and customer satisfaction. I expect you to champion and fast track the process of realigning the structure and reviewing the operations and internal processes of the bank through the institutional renewal exercise”.

    Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, George Ossi observed that the past management facilitated the delivery of over seventeen thousand housing units during their four years tenure and also recovered about N6 billion debts.

   He urged the new team to surpass its predecessors and bring more visibility to the FMBN so that it continue to serve as a veritable vehicle for deepening mortgage penetration to the nooks and crannies of Nigeria and also support the provision of affordable homes to the citizenry as envisioned by National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP).

  Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the FMBN, Gima Ya’U Kumo has expressed the commitment of the Bank’s new management to develop pro-active and effective strategies that would help recapitalise FMBN and ensure improvement in its balance sheet structure to solidify its standing as a financial institution.

    Kumo who was returned as the Managing Director of the Bank noted that on assumption of office in 2010, he met an FMBN that was being run using manual mode of operation coupled with underperformance in NHF collections, stiff opposition from labour unions and strained relationships with strategic stakeholders.

    He explained that the bank has commenced automation of its operations and introduced the e-collection platform to streamline the NHF collection processes which according to him resulted in a 300 per cent increase in NHF collections from about N700million to over N2.4billion per month, adding that the bank has recovered about N2.5billion.

   He assured that the new management would address the various challenges facing the FMBN as well as the housing sector in general and transform the bank into a world-class institution.

   He observed that FMBN also initiated a four million housing units under a partnership struck with the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC} and NECA aimed at providing affordable housing to Nigerian workers.

   Kumo pointed out that the management would work to attract offshore funding for affordable housing to Nigerians, improve on service delivery to NHF contributors as well as complete all on-going housing projects.

   He further stressed the Commitment of the FMBN to the actualisation of the national housing policy.