NMRC in major step towards affordable home-ownership with 10,000 mortgages
The recent launching of 10,000 mortgages by the Federal Government as part of efforts towards realizing the objectives of the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Corporation (NMRC) has been described as a major step towards affordable housing delivery and home-ownership in Nigeria.
The 10,000 mortgages jointly launched by the ministers of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and her Lands, Housing and Urban Development counterpart, Akon Eyakenyi, is the first tranch of the 200,000 mortgages targeted for the NMRC scheme by the Federal Government.
Okonjo-Iweala had at the launch of the scheme in January this year, announced that the number of mortgages in the country would be increased to 200,000 from its present 20,000, assuring that with the full operation of NMRC, a substantial building block would be put in place to pull down interest rate from the current spread of 20 to 23 percent to low double digits or high single digit.
At the launching of the 10,000 mortgages, Eyakenyi acknowledged the tireless efforts of the Finance minister to see the scheme succeed, disclosing that her ministry was also committed to providing the first 10,000 housing units required to kick-off the project in collaboration with key stakeholders in the building industry.
“We have an obligation to develop a medley of house-types that are affordable, of good quality, excellent standards, and located in viable and aesthetic communities, serviced with the requisite infrastructure and services”, she assured.
According to her, most of the states they had approached for the scheme were well disposed to the success of this programme by making secured and viable land available for mass housing development, stressing that “it is important to note that pre-qualification for the mortgages is a crucial first step to home-ownership to enable interested persons benefit from the affordable houses.
The minister also revealed that her ministry was pursuing complementary activities targeted at bridging the current housing gap and the success of the Nigeria Housing Finance Programme in which they had recorded modest achievements in vital areas.
She recalled that, not long ago, the president, Goodluck Jonathan, commissioned several estates built in partnership with the private sector and funded by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), including the FMBN Aviation Village Housing Estate in Abuja which comprises 270 housing units and the Elim Housing Estate in Enugu with 324 housing units.
Other estates developed by the ministry, FMBN and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), she said, would be commissioned later this year. These include Jedo Housing Estate in Lugbe, Abuja with 250 Housing Units, Brick City Phase 2 Estate in Kubwa, Abuja with 300 housing units and the Ministerial Housing Project in Suleja with 102 housing units.
“Additionally, under a National Site and Services Scheme, the ministry is currently building fully serviced residential plots per site in 13 states of the six Geopolitical Zones of the Federation, and FCT”, she said, hinting that the ministry was also working closely with state governments, private sector, the Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria (REDAN), professional and regulatory bodies in the housing and urban development sector, and other key stakeholders to further increase the national housing stock and effectively address some of the factors militating against housing development in Nigeria.
These factors, she said, included high cost of land, delay in processing land titles and building approvals, high cost of building materials, low mortgage penetration and low level of enforcement of regulations, codes and standards.
Chuka Uroko