Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) Mr. Madu Mamman
FG excludes council workers in Bayelsa from National Housing programme
[From CHRIS EZE, Yenagoa]
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Mr. Madu Mamman, has said that local government workers in the eight local government councils in Bayelsa State are not covered in the National Housing Fund programme for civil servants across the country.
Mamman who disclosed this in Yenagoa on Thursday when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Douye Diri, called on the governor to intervene to enable council staff to benefit from the programme.
The FMBN boss explained that he was in the state to explore mutually beneficial areas of partnership in order to actualize the vision of expanding home-ownership among workers.
According to him, “FMBN was established for affordable mortgage to drive home-ownership among Nigerians, particularly workers in the low and middle-income brackets of both public and private sectors who contribute 2.5% of their monthly income.”
He said while Bayelsa civil servants were major contributors to the national housing fund scheme, employees of the eight local government councils were not captured under the policy.
Mamman also said the bank had advanced N591 million home renovation loans to about one thousand civil servants in the state and over the years had refunded the sum of N1.12 billion to retired contributors from the state.
Responding, Gov. Diri said his administration would collaborate with the Mortgage Bank to deliver decent and affordable housing to workers as part of efforts to enhance their welfare.
The governor who granted the bank’s request for the allocation of land to support financing of housing initiatives in the state equally directed the Commissioner for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Barr. Esau Andrew and the Head of Service, Mrs. Biobelemoye Charles-Onyeama, to liaise with the bank to ensure that its ministerial pilot housing projects at Otuoke and Elebele communities in Ogbia Local Government Area, were completed.
The governor stressed the need the need to attract more federal presence to the state to fast-track its development, even as he implored management of the bank not to apply
uniform rates for construction of houses in states for Bayelsa arguing that the peculiar terrain of Bayelsa makes cost of construction in the state higher than elsewhere in the country.
He therefore urged the financial institution to review the rates for Bayelsa to enable workers to benefit from the housing scheme.
Diri said: “l like to assure you that our government will work with your bank to see how we can take the housing policy for our civil servants very seriously in order to improve their welfare.
“On the housing projects that the bank is undertaking in the state, my take is that the cost of constructing a house in Yenagoa is different from the cost of construction in other parts of the country.
“I’m aware that the FMBN has uniform rates in the construction of houses but that does not apply here. So I urge the bank to review its rates as regards our state. If the rates are uniform, certainly you cannot get it done here.”
The governor commended civil servants in the state for keying into the national housing fund scheme, noting that the initiative would facilitate home-ownership for the workers.
