(Quick News Africa)- Ahmed Dangida, the managing director/CEO of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), on Thursday advised staff of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to take advantage of the National Housing Fund (NHF) mortgage system to own their own houses at an affordable interest rate of 6 percent.
Dangiwa stated this when Usman Yusuf, who is the executive secretary of NHIS, paid him a courtesy visit at the FMBN headquarters in Abuja, where it was learnt that N300 million has been raised by NHIS staff which could be used for home mortgage purposes.
According to Samuel Egwaba, president of the NHIS Cooperative Society, “they have over 1300 staff spread across the country, and the cooperative has about N300 million which could serve as equity contributions.”
The FMBN boss expressed satisfaction that NHIS is up-to-date in their contribution to the NHF, a situation he described as an indication of the commitment of the management of NHIS to staff welfare.
According to him, “in the same vein, the management of FMBN is committed to promoting the interest of the staff, particularly in the area of health and for this reason, the bank has ensured that it is up-to-date in its remittance to NHIS.”
In a bid to improve mortgage affordability, the MD noted that the bank has ensured the recapitalization of its equity contributions of NHF loans to N5 million and below, thereby reducing the actual cost to about 20 percent.
However, contributors of N5 million and above to the fund would make equity contributions of 30 percent.
Dangiwa requested for data of the various organizations contributing to NHF, saying it will assist in identifying organizations that are not complying with the equity contributions to NHF for appropriate action.
He regretted that despite staff contributions to NHIS through the cooperatives, it was still difficult to access the funds.
The FMBN boss tasked the management of NHIS to urgently resolve the issues bordering on staff contributions.
Apart from the NHF window, FMBN has similar initiatives like home renovation loan, cooperative loan and rent-to-own aimed at helping to resolve the housing challenges in Nigeria.
On his part, Yusuf said the best legacy he would leave behind in NHIS would be to acquire houses for the staff, saying that the organization has maintained a good partnership with FMBN for years.
“My going round is to build trust and we are telling people to trust NHIS again, so we want to hear any complain you have with your Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and the hospitals that your staff go to so that we can do better,” he said.
He sought for ongoing discussion between a team of cooperatives and management of NHIS with relevant officers in FMBN on ways of accessing mortgage for the staff.
