Banker Seeks Low Mortgage For Housing Sector Dev

The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), has called on the mortgage industry to help lower the interest rate on loans to help boost affordable housing.
The chairman of council and former President, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Mrs. Debola Osiboygun, made the call in her valedictory speech at an event to mark the end of her tenure in Lagos last Saturday.
Osibogun who spoke on the topic, “Rethinking Nigeria’s Mortgage Financing Policies for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness”, noted that there was a gradual shift from mobilizing short-term house hold deposit for long term mortgage financing to housing finance, a more closely integrated transaction with broader capital market development.
According to her, “ “against the backdrop of the challenges of delivering affordable houses to Nigerians, there was need for a rethink of the approaches used to achieve the objectives for the housing policy”.
She called for steps to be taken to put Nigeria among economically developed nations globally and project the country as an investor’s destination in housing delivery.
She said, “looking at the past, analyzing the present and projecting into the future there is the compelling need to take a second look at what we have done as a nation to promote housing delivery, ensure better development, and global competitiveness so as to make Nigeria an investment destination for housing delivery”.
She said the Nigerian housing policy had always emphasized that housing must be seen in the context of overall national development, which includes social development, the generation of employment opportunities, the geographical distribution of the population and the location of industrial commercial and agricultural activities.