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Dogara frowns at violation of NHF Act, housing policies

By NAN
12 December 2017   |   3:24 pm
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, on Tuesday reiterated the commitment of the house to initiate a legislative framework that will address housing deficit in the country.

The Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara PHOTO: TWITTER/DOGARA

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara, on Tuesday reiterated the commitment of the house to initiate a legislative framework that will address housing deficit in the country.

Dogara said in Abuja during a two-day public hearing on a motion on the need to ensure full compliance with the National Housing Fund (NHF) Act for effective housing delivery in Nigeria.

The speaker was represented by the House Minority Whip, Rep. Binta Bello.

He expressed concern that policies designed to provide adequate housing for Nigerians had not yielded positive results due to violation of the NHF Act by the stakeholders.

According to him, there is need to unravel the reason why some stakeholders in the housing sector failed to comply with the NHF Act and the Federal Mortgage Bank Act.

“The National Housing Fund was designed to assist the public servants and private sector employees while saving a percentage of their income.

“The government through mortgage banks is expected to provide loans to real estate developers to build low cost houses for Nigerians.

“But unfortunately both programmes are not yielding the desired result as houses are still not within the reach of Nigerians,’’ Dogara said.

He added that the legislature was determined to collaborate with the stakeholders in ensuring safe and affordable homes.

Dogara said the National Assembly was also determined to provide viable framework that would lead to private sector participation and ownership of houses.

Earlier, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Housing, Rep. Ahmed Kaita, said that the public hearing was in fulfillment of the campaign promise of the Federal Government.

Kaita said government had promised to create at least four million additional new middle class home owners in 2019.

The committee chairman said that this would be achieved by enacting national mortgage single digit interest rate for purchase of owner-occupier houses.

He said the campaign promise would also be fulfilled through a review of the collateral qualification to make funding for home ownership easier with a 15 to 30 years mortgage term.

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