House To Investigate Non Remittances To NHF

The House of Representatives says it will beam its searchlight on the National Housing Fund, NHF, to investigate non-remittances to the fund from 2011 till date.

The move was sequel to a motion by a member from Adamawa State, Zakaria Nyampa on the need to investigate non remittances to the National Housing Fund and utilization of the fund from 2011 till date.

Leading the debate, the mover of the motion, Zakari Nyampa, stated that from an assessment of the performance of the National Housing Fund in Nigeria carried out by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, revealed that one in every five disbursed loans went into default despite the slight improvement of 20.9% witnessed in 2014.

He said various reasons were provided for the high default rate experienced which according to him includes demise of the mortgagor, unwillingness of the customers to repay, nonpayment by employer and lack of constant follow up on the mortgagor, amongst other reasons.

The Lawmaker, expressed concern that there seems to be a gross default in the utilization and remittance of the National
Housing Fund which constitutes an offence under section 20 of the NHF Act.

Mr Nyampa said various reasons were provided for the high default rate experienced which according to him includes demise of the mortgagor, unwillingness of the customers to repay, nonpayment by employer and lack of constant follow up on the mortgagor, amongst other reasons.

He expressed concern that there seems to be a gross default in the utilization and remittance of the National
Housing Fund which constitutes an offence under section 20 of the NHF Act.

The Deputy Speaker ,Mr Benjamin Kalu who presided over Plenary stressed the need for the Federal Government to promote public/private partnership to optimize the NHF scheme.

This according to the deputy speaker is to enable Nigerian workers to own homes and also for the country to get resources from both the government and the private sector.

Adopting the motion, the House resolved to set up an Ad-hoc Committee to investigate the matter and report back for more legislative action.

Oduyemi Odumade, Edited By Grace Namiji