FG to deploying different approaches to provide housing for workers – Fika

The Federal Government is to deploy different approaches to provide decent housing for the workforce, especially federal public servants.

Dr Hannatu Fika, Executive Secretary of Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, made this known in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja.

She said the public service was the engine of governance while housing and other staff welfare were critical to motivate workers for the engine to run smoothly.

Fika explained that the mandate of the board was to provide soft housing loans to confirmed federal public servants, including military, para-military, judiciary and National Assembly staff.

She said that in view of the volume of coverage, the board had deployed various options to increase available resources to ensure that workers had their own homes while in service or in retirement.

She said the board was partnering different stakeholders in the home finance industries, including the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), to achieve its objectives.

According to her, the partnership with NMRC has led to the refinance of N13 billion mortgages which is the active loan advanced to workers.

She said work was, however, on-going to ensure continuity of the arrangement to enable more workers key into the scheme, through which 30,000 workers had benefited.

Fika said the board was also working with the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing and some other agencies to ensure that Nigerians were provided decent houses.

She further said that the N100 billion allocated to the Family Home Fund by the Federal Government would reduce the country`s housing deficit substantially.

Fika said that the board had provided between five million naira and N15 million as loan to workers to build or buy their own houses, depending on their ranks.

She added that effort was on to review the loan ceiling in view of the present high cost of building materials in the country.

Fika said that the delay in the disbursement of loans to workers was due to the paucity of funds.

She said beneficiaries who collected the first batch of their approved loans and wanted to withdraw could do so, adding that any variation that might arise in their repayment, would be promptly resolved.

She appealed to loan applicants to be patient and explained that the batch system was to ensure fairness, justice and equity.

According to her, inflow from repayment is small compared to the volume of daily applications, as some beneficiaries have tenure of up to 25 years to repay their loans.

Fika, however, said that in view of the importance of the public service for good governance, the board needed more funds.

This, she said, could be from both the government or through public private partnership in order to serve the housing needs of workers.