The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Tuesday, called for improved financing in the housing sector.
He made the call at the housing investment forum with the theme: Exploring the Option of National Housing Bond for Housing Development: Public-Public Sector Collaboration held in Abuja.
He said government, as an enabler, needs to revisit the deployment of fiscal and monetary policy in order to unlock finances in the sector.
“…Some of the statements I have made in public about the need to improve financing towards the housing sector,” he said.
Earlier, the Managing Director (MD) of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Arc Ahmed Dangiwa, noted that the most critical of the challenges to housing provision is finance (both construction and mortgage).
His words: “It is beyond any iota of doubt that the most critical of the challenges to housing provision is finance (both construction and mortgage). In Nigeria, apart from mortgages offered by the Federal Mortgages Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) through the National Housing Fund scheme, you can hardly get any long-tenured mortgage loan and definitely not at FMBN rates.”
He stressed that the current reality in the housing finance sector demands a radical reappraisal and redirection towards creating a sustainable funding source.
“We have realised long ago that the kind of funding we require and desire can only be gotten through a handshake with the capital market,” he added.
