ICPC recovers N53b for mortgage bank

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC), at the weekend, said it recovered N53 billion from a real estate developer for the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN).

Its Chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who made the disclosure during a meeting with the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee Investigating Operations of Real Estate Developers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), clarified that the developer took the money without providing houses for subscribers.

He promised that anti-graft agency’s continued clampdown on fraudulent developers.

ICPC spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua, in a statement yesterday, quoted Owasanoye as lamenting the rising housing deficit in the country, noting that “unscrupulous real estate developers in the FCT took advantage of desperate civil servants to scam them of their hard-earned money in the name of housing projects.”

Owasanoye said his organisation was desirous of partnering with the panel to sanitise the sector.

The committee chair, Blessing Onoh, had decried the widespread cases of developers defrauding prospective house owners in the land.