Lawmakers to investigate non-remittances of National Housing Fund
Story from Christine TOBECHUKWU
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Mr Benjamin Kalu during plenary session stressed the need for the Nigerian government to promote public/private partnership to fully optimize the National Housing Fund NHF scheme.
According to the deputy speaker, this would enable Nigerian workers to own their homes.His remarks were sequel to a motion by a member from Adamawa State Mr Zakaria Nyampa on the need to investigate non-remittances to the National Housing Fund and utilization of the fund from 2011 till date.
The deputy speaker added that the partnership would also enable the country to get a handful of resources both from the government and the private sector.
Mr Zakari Nyampa, who moved the motion and led the debate, stated that from an assessment of the performance of the National Housing Fund in Nigeria carried out by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the analysis of survey returns revealed that one in every five disbursed loans went into default despite the slight improvement of 20.9 percent witnessed in 2014.
Mr Nyampa stated that multiple reasons tendered for the high default rate experienced, includes the demise of the mortgagor, the unwillingness of the customers to repay, nonpayment by the employer and lack of constant follow-up on the mortgagor, amongst others.
He expressed concern that there seems to be a gross default in the utilisation and remittance of the National Housing Fund which constitutes an offence under section 20 of the NHF Act;
The House of Representatives however, adopted the motion and resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the problem and report back to the house for more legislative actions.