NHF Scheme: Aggrieved Contributors Lament

Some aggrieved con
tributors to the National Housing Fund (NHF) scheme have expressed disappointment over the difficulties in accessing the fund after meeting the necessary requirements.
Our correspondent reports that the NHF scheme, administered by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) through Primary Mortgage institutions, is designed to provide affordable housing to Nigerian workers.
Some contributors from the NIGCOMSAT Ltd Abuja, who spoke to our correspondent on Tuesday, called for government to address their plight.
The affected contributors said that in 2011, they had expressed interest in buying houses from JEDO Investment Company Ltd., an estate developer.
The Senior Manager, Network Operations Centre, NIGCOMSAT Ltd, Mr Kayode Babalola, Abuja, described the delay as “uncalled for and annoying’’, urging the federal government to review the scheme with immediate effect.
“I applied for a three-bedroom fully detached house at the rate of N12.7 million and in June 7, 2013, I paid equity of over N3.8 million, being 30 per cent of the cost of the building.
“I took a commercial loan from Heritage Bank Plc which I am repaying despite its high interest rate; but up till now, I have not been able to access the fund neither is the house made available to me.
“Immediately after the payment of equity, I also applied for the NHF loan of over N8.8 million in 2013 which is the remaining balance of the cost of the housing.
“Since then, no house, no NHF loan and no refund and I have been paying house rent and repaying the commercial loan I took from the bank for equity payment.’’
Babalola said that all NHF applicants, including himself, were moved from Trans Atlantic Mortgage Bank which was said not to be fully recapitalised with CBN, to Resort Savings and Loans Ltd.
“The Resort Savings and Loans Ltd. still requested us to pay the same N100, 000 processing fee which we already paid at the former PMB that was packaging us. We all paid, still our money is hanging.
“It was until we went to FMBN that we were notified that Resort Savings and Loans Ltd. had problems. If we had not gone there, we would not have known.