THE Ekiti State government is seeking a partnership with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) to deliver 2,000 housing units to the people of the state.
Governor of the state, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, said this during a courtesy call with the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of FMBN, Shehu Osidi, on Monday in Abuja.
Oyebanji, represented by his Special Adviser, Bureau of Housing and Mortgage Development, Gboyega Oloniyo, said the visit was to congratulate Osidi on his appointment as well as to make some requests.
According to him, there is a need for the Ekiti government to synergise with FMBN on housing delivery to address the housing deficit in the state.
“Our government holds housing sector in high esteem, but there is a challenge for us in achieving housing delivery because houses are not cheap now.
“You will agree with me that we don’t have low cost housing any longer and there cannot be medium cost housing because the cost of building materials has gone up.
“Where do we run to for shelter? It is only by coming to your organisation that we can truly join hands together,” he said.
Oyebanji said his government had earlier signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a company to work with FMBN to deliver the 2,000 housing units.
He said Ekiti State had a huge diaspora population that could match any state in the country as well as a good number of civil servants, hence, there would not be a problem with the off takers of the houses.
He said the housing idea was not only about availability of houses but also affordability.
He said the housing project would address the challenges people in the diaspora faced by sending money home for buildings, which were usually diverted by friends and family members.
He said the construction of the houses would be in all the local government areas of the state so that people would buy houses in places closest to them.
“The government is ready for this because we are providing hectares of land in each of the local governments to take care of this,” he said.
Osidi assured the Ekiti State government of the bank’s readiness to partner with the state to deliver houses.
Osidi said, “We feel normally excited when state governments extend hands of fellowship to us to partner to provide affordable houses to Nigerians.
“Like you know, our mandate is to provide homeownership, by way of mortgage financing to the lower and middle income earners in this country.
“This is for Nigerian workers in the public and private sectors, but even self employed individuals are also at liberty to contribute to the National Housing Fund and take advantage of our various loan products.
“One of the reasons FMBN decided to venture into financing housing construction is so that we can achieve controlled prices for the kind of houses that we are financing.
“This is because generally, houses that are available in the market are not within the threshold of affordability for our target market.”
Osidi said the Bank would partner with Ekiti State government to provide mortgage financing to indigenes of the state who were contributors to National Housing Fund at six per cent interest rate.
He said the bank also partnered with developers to deliver houses in the state, adding that it currently had three ongoing projects worth over N2 billion, already disbursed for the construction of 145 housing units.
He said the state would also benefit from the President Bola Tinubu’s renewed hope housing agenda to delver 100,000 houses across the country. (NAN)
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