Surveyor Wants Law For Mortgage Funds

An Estate Surveyor and
Valuer in Port Harcourt, Morgan Amakiri has urged the Federal Government  and the National Assembly to come up with a law that would ensure  non mortgage    funds.
Amakiri who made this known in an interview    with The Tide in Port Harcourt Monday, noted  that  mortgage loan could not be neglected as far as housing development is concerned.
He said that mortgage was like a bridging  fund,  saying that availability of the fund would increase housing stock. He regretted that such funds were not  available for people to access.
Mr.  Amakiri who is the principal consultant of Amakiri Associates, an estate surveyors and valuers  firm, and a fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), explained that many primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) had liquidated  due to lack of business.
He said that the operations of mortgage institutions were different from the commercial  banks  as they  gave out loans for a longer period of time, with  lower interest rate which  would be within a single digit”.
Now many of the PMIs who want to be sustained in business, now operate  for short-term loan and higher  interest rate”, he said.
The consultant  expressed worries that funds meant for mortgage were being diverted or appropriated to other  uses, adding that “if  there  must be access to funds for housing development, there must be a law  that must regulate  mortgage operations in the country.
If the state must own a mortgage  institution, it must be purely on business, and should not be politicised, and every one that    wants to obtain loan from it like the civil servants,  should have savings with the institution”.
He said that companies should be made to contribute a little to this fund, and in-turn  have a tax relief as a benefit, and that pension fund could also  be ploughed  back to the Federal Mortgage  Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) as the apex Morgagge  Institution, so as to yield dividend, since it is a long-term finance.
The real estate expert also posited  that the process of getting a C of O should  be easier  to facilitate  housing development.

Corlins Walter