By Nse Anthony-Uko
As part of efforts to create easy access to home ownership in the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), the Nigeria Mortgage Refinancing Company (NMRC), Mortgage Bank Association of Nigeria (MBAN) have taken its home ownership campaign to the door steps of Lagos residents.
Speaking at the Lagos Town Storm ceremony to Introduce, “My Own Home” Scheme to the Nigerian populace in Lagos, the National Housing Mortgage Finance Specialist in the Supervision department of the Central Bank Of Nigeria Adenike Fasanya –Osilaja said the company and stakeholders in the housing finance sector have stepped up its campaign to shore up awareness of Mortgage, Housing Micro-finance and Consumer Protection.
Fansaya –Osilaja said, “My Own Home” is a public , private partnership scheme carefully tailored to increase access to housing finance and housing in Nigeria through the mortgage guarantee , insurance scheme and Housing microfinance scheme.
“My Own Home” scheme has a broad-based stakeholders and partnership that include; the federal government of Nigeria, federal Ministry of finance, Central Bank of Nigeria, the World bank, Federal ministry of power, Works and housing, the federal ministry of justice and Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria (MBAN). Mortgage originating institutions are participating in the scheme through equity stake they took in Nigeria refinance Mortgage refinance Company (NMRC).
“My Own Home” scheme has set up a framework that will revamp the housing finance sector and also make access to housing finance a lot easier through Nigeria mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), Housing Microfinance Scheme.”
She added that people can easily own a home, when they key into the scheme , saying they are changing from the entrenched practice of supply to demand home ownership delivery system to demand and supply system to permanently end the issue of vacant homes.
According to her, nobody is limited by income, saying anyone that has attained the age of 21, the age at which anyone can sign a legal contract is qualified to apply for the scheme. She explained that what differentiate the scheme from other housing programmes introduced in the past is that the programmes were government sponsored programmes saying the new scheme is industry driven with Central Bank of Nigeria providing enabling platform.
“All we are doing is assisting to jump start the programme. What that means is no matter the political party in power it does not affect its continuity because the industry is the same. Banks outlives government, they outlives political parties. It is not a government or political programme,” she said.
Also speaking the President of Mortgage Bank Association of Nigeria (MBAN) , Mr. Niyi Akinlusi , said the cardinal objective of the scheme is to shift the process of homeownership in the country. According to him, the housing sector is important to the economic growth of any economy, in the sense that the housing sector propels economic growth, saying the country can no-longer afford not to adopt modern method of home ownership.
He said the era of making individual savings to own a home by building for many years were gone , saying the process has been simplified by getting loan facilities from Housing Microfinance scheme designed stimulate housing finance for low income earners in the formal and informal sector or mortgage banks.
Akinlusi said, plans are afoot to release what he called uniform mortgage standards in the country both in the informal sector and for the self-employed to achieve financial inclusion. He urged Nigerians to take the advantage provided by the housing microfinance scheme and mortgage banks to own their homes by approaching the financial institutions to secure loan facilities that will make easy for them to actualize the dream of building their houses.
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