TheCable

Ahmed Dangiwa, managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), says the bank plans to retrieve an estimated N43 billion from debtors in the next 18 months.

The exercise will be carried out in collaboration with the special presidential investigation panel for recovery of public property.

Dangiwa made the disclosure at the bank’s 2018 annual management retreat which took place in Kano state on Sunday.

According to him, between 2017 and 2018, the bank was able to recover N5.4 billion from debtors after employing “renewed strategies,” including the use of recovery agents.

He said the growing number of debt is slowing down the bank’s investment and largely obstructing policy implementation targeted at financing affordable housing scheme for Nigerians.

The FMBN MD said after a 12-year wait, the two chambers of the national assembly had passed key amendments to the laws establishing the institution and the National Housing Fund, pending presidential assent

While announcing new projects by the bank, he said a “need-targeted housing delivery programme” had been launched across the country and was already recoding some success.

“Groundbreaking ceremonies have been done and construction work has commenced in earnest in five states, spread across the six geo-political zones of the country. Others are in the pipeline as we intend to cover every state across the country,” he said.

“Part of the central focus is to establish a template for affordable housing delivery in Nigeria. Accordingly, the implementation concept is unique with the housing designs and bill of quantities directly commissioned by the bank to ensure the profit motive is greatly minimised.

“This template has given us the leverage to guarantee that the selling prices for the housing units range between N3.1million and N8.3million for one, two and three bedroom flats.”