The federal government would seek all legitimate means to ensure that federal public servants have access to durable, quality and affordable homes to motivate them to contribute their quota to the socio-economic development of the country, Executive Secretary of Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, Mrs Hannatu Adamu Fika, has said.
Mrs Fika said this at a meeting with the management of Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC).
She said staff welfare is one of the topmost priorities of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, adding that the partnership between Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board and Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company would ease the difficulty in accessing mortgages by staff of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government to build their own homes.
She said the partnership would assist the teeming public servants that are eagerly waiting to access housing loan either to build or purchase houses directly from developers.
Mrs Fika also disclosed that the loan disbursed through the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board is risk free since the board has a robust repayment mechanism as most of the public servants are on IPPIS platform and repayment of housing loan is a first charge on loan beneficiaries’ salary.
In his remarks, the Managing Director of Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company, Professor Charles Inyongete said with the large portfolio of mortgage from the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, the company would secure a refinance on single digit interest rate in order to make the facility convenient for civil servants.
He assured of the company’s commitment to refinance all conforming loans through appropriate channels, and look forward to an enduring relationship.
In a related development, at the tripartite meeting held in Nairobi recently
between the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Shelter Afrique UN-Habitat, and other key stakeholders including the China Nantong Sanjian Construction Group Co. Ltd (CNSC), the provision of adequate housing for federal staff dominated the discussion.
At the meeting, representative of the Head of Service of the Federation, the Permanent Secretary (CSO), Mr. S.K. Adelakun reiterated federal government’s commitment to collaborate with the Shelter Afrique and other stakeholders using Federal Integrated Staff Housing Scheme (FISH) as a vehicle to deliver affordable housing for the federal civil servants.
He said the Office of Head of Civil Service of the Federation has secured a partnership approval of Shelter Afrique on a project to construct 2,000 housing units for Public Servants to be built on a piece of land allocated to the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board at Wasa District of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He also sought the technical support from Shelter Afrique to build the capacity of the Staff of Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board to be able to deliver quality service on the scheme, to which the Executive Secretary assured of the board’s readiness to start the project immediately since Shelter Afrique has agreed to fund infrastructure/mortgages.
