The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has announced the establishment of a mortgage company which will make it possible for many Nigerians to own their own houses at affordable rates. A statement released yesterday in Abuja by the Special Adviser to the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu said the company will be launched by President Goodluck Jonathan between August and September this year. The company, Mortgage Refinance Company which is promoted by the Federal Government with majority private sector ownership will help to address the acute housing challenge in the country. Currently, the country’s total housing deficit stands at 17 million units. Okonjo-Iweala who disclosed this in Abuja yesterday said the institution is a key part of President Goodluck Jonathan’s vision to ensure that Nigerians have access to cheap mortgage funds from housing finance lenders. The minister said President Jonathan had directed her and the Minister of Housing, Ms. Ama Pepple, to fashion out appropriate and effective means of addressing the housing challenges in the country, adding that the result of such collaboration was the MRC. According to her, the World Bank had already bought into the emerging refinance institution with a soft loan of $300 million under the bank’s International Development Association, IDA, concessionary lending window. The minister said the Federal Government was also working on mass housing schemes with a rent-to-own option for workers to reduce the housing deficit in the country. The target of the first stage of the mass housing scheme is to increase the number of completed mortgages from the current 20,000 housing units to 200,000 units in three years. “Though this target is quite a tough one, we believe that with the leadership of the President and the commitment and hard work of the various ministries and agencies involved, it is achievable”, Dr Okonjo-Iweala said. She added that plans were underway to develop the required policy and legislations to support the proposed reforms in the housing sector.
↧
