The World Bank has approved US$300mn for the establishment of the Mortgage Re-Financing Company to facilitate the provision of affordable houses to Nigerians
The Nigerian minister of lands, housing and urban development, Ama Pepple, said, “The mortgage company is being worked out by the Federal Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the Central Bank of Nigeria.”
The minister expressed hope that the company, when operational, would help create about 200,000 mortgages across the country.
Pepple said her ministry has already delivered 8,069 houses in 2012 and added that the ministry’s prototype housing scheme had so far produced 256 houses in three cities of the federation.
The ministry has also entered into partnership with private companies to build houses in Taraba, Gombe, Kano and other states.
Pepple noted, “The ministry is also building houses and selling them through banks and the Federal Mortgage Bank.
“The ministry has created a Public Private Partnership unit to work in partnership with the private sector to deliver houses to the people.”
Pepple said that the ministry had issued about 2,131 Certificate of Occupancy between 2011 and 2012. She added that the ministry also succeeded in creating 720,228 jobs in the housing sector in 2012.
The minster listed issues of land procurement, land compensation, poverty, proliferation of slums and shortages of houses as the chief problems facing the Nigerian housing sector currently.
