The Nation Newspaper

Category: Building & Properties

  • Architecture gets upgrade

    After six years of intensive lobby and preparations by the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), and the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA), the National Universities Commission (NUC), has approved the upgrading of architecture study from a department to a faculty in all Nigerian universities.

    This new policy, which will become operational in a few months, will be preceded by a one-day retreat with all in the academia and professionals towards its implementation.

    The NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Abdulrasheed Abubakar, made this known in Abuja at the colloquium organised by ARCON.

    Abubakar, who was represented by the Acting Director, Department of Students’ Support Services, NUC, Dr. (Mrs.) Mariam Salle, said the NUC has approved in principle the request by ARCON to upgrade architecture study in Nigeria universities from the departmental to faculty level. She added that a directive would be sent to the universities for immediate implementation. According to her, the request by ARCON was a good one, hence the NUC gave the approval, adding that the approval would no doubt lift the profession of architecture to the next level.

    “The graduate of that course will be better off.  The studies of architecture will definitely be better off with this.  It is a positive development for Nigerian students studying architecture,” she noted.

    Salle urged leaders of the profession to embrace the approval and work towards improving the delivery of the curriculum.

    Reacting to the development, the President, ARCON, Umaru Aliyu, an Architect, said the approval brought great excitement to the body especially when it is considered that ARCON has been on this since 2012. The policy, he hopes, will triple the turning out of architects in the country.

    “Now that study of architecture  has been upgraded to faculty level, it means that more prospective students would be admitted and that will clearly lead to increased number of architects in Nigeria,” Umar said.

    The move, he further revealed, was based on ARCON’s realisation that there is a shortfall of architects in the country, as the nation needs about 18,000 architects to serve the populace.

    He said to get it to this point, ARCON and NIA members both  in public and private were sensitised and reached an accord to support the. initiative.

    The President, NIA, Adibe Njoku, saw the development as a good one for the profession, adding that his members have been part of the initiative since 2012.

  • ARCON’s colloquium begins

    The yearly architecture colloquium organised by the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), begins on Monday at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja. It will end on Thursday.

    According to the organisers, this  edition has as theme: “Architecture and The Nigerian Development Agenda XI while the sub-theme is “Architecture and Sustainable Built Environment.”

    ARCON Registrar, Umar Murnai said this year’s edition would cover architecture and sustainability concept, software capacity building for architects, and building finishes.

    He said those expected to attend the event are architects, other professionals in the building industry, research institutions, teachers, students, agencies responsible for housing and developmental control and the public.

    A former president of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA), Jimoh Faworaja, said the  colloquium is designed to proffer solutions to issues in the built environment, finding implementation strategies, evaluation of output, outcome and impact on the profession, the  public and the nation.

    According to him, the colloquium, established in 2007, has debated on prime architectural issues, with many architects and other stakeholders presenting papers.

  • $210m cash for West Africa’s coastal communities coming

    The West African Coastal Areas (WACA) Resilience Investment Project, partly funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), has been approved by the Board of the World Bank Group.

    It will help build coastal communities in Republic of Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal and Togo through a $210 million financing package.

    The project will protect coastal  communities against erosion through fixing dunes, restoring wetlands and mangroves, replenishing beaches, and building seawalls and dikes.

    It will reduce flooding by rehabilitating lagoons and drainages, and by improving watershed management

    It is led by West African governments.

    “The WACA Resilience Investment Project is a collective response to the urgent need to address coastal degradation in a regional, integrated manner. It is an opportunity to strengthen the resilience of West Africa’s communities and transform their livelihoods,” Makhtar Diop, World Bank’s Vice President for the Africa Region, said.

    About 42 percent of West Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is generated in coastal areas, where almost one-third of the population resides and communities are, particularly vulnerable to the effects of severe coastal erosion and frequent flooding.

    To sustain investments and attract more investors, the project will provide technical assistance for regionally integrated spatial planning, prepare a yearly report on the state of West Africa’s coasts, and support the revision and enforcement of laws and protocols contributing to healthy and productive coasts.

    The project will boost regional cooperation to address coastal erosion by working with four regional institutions – the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), The Abidjan Convention, The Dakar-based Center for Ecological Monitoring (CSE), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

    The financial package includes a credit of $120 million and a grant of $70 million from the International Development Association and a grant of $20.25 million from the GEF.

    The Nordic Development Fund will provide an additional EUR13.1 million to improve resilience in the coastal regions, and the French Facility for the Global Environment will fund light infrastructure, land-use planning, and nature-based solutions against coastal erosion worth EUR1.3 million.

    More partners are expected to join the effort through a new Platform that will boost the transfer of knowledge, mobilise additional finance and foster political dialogue among countries, and to protect the West African coast.

    Through the International Waters (IW) focal area, the GEF helps countries jointly manage their transboundary surface water basins, groundwater basins, and coastal and marine systems. IW investments facilitate integrated cross-sectoral approaches that engage the private sector, non-governmental organisations and multilateral institutions.

  • Lagos denies involvement in Mayfair Gardens water crises

    The Lagos State government has dissociated itself from the water rate crisis at  the Mayfair Gardens Estate, Lekki.

    The controversial rates did not emanate from the government,  its Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Babatunde Durosinmi- Etti said.

    Speaking during a meeting with heads of the state Water Regulatory Commission, Mr. Kabir Abdullahi and Water Corporation, Mr. Munir Badmus, the commissioner urged Lagosians to report any  billing or borehole closure to the ministry. He added that the government did not authorise the closure of any borehole except it was found to be unfit for domestic use.

    Durosinmi-Etti said Mayfair Gardens was built by HFP Engineering.  “Being a private estate, HFP Engineering has been  servicing it with social amenities, such as water. This is an indication that the estate, not being serviced by the Lagos Water Corporation, could not have received bills from the water agency,” he said.

    He said further that by selling water to its residents, the estate could be categorised as commercial users of water, adding that the government would not hesitate to impose charges if need be to promote responsible commercial water usage.

    He said the government had introduced some measures of control for commercial usage of water.

    He said regulation, control and monitoring of water resources was to take inventory of the sources, quality of water produced and consumed by citizens and  prompt identification of any source of pollution of the underground water.

    Durosimi-Etti explained that the government was not unaware of the hardship the misunderstanding between the management and residents of the estate had caused, stressing that the government was prepared to intervene.

    “The environment and well-being of the people is our concern. This is why we must wade into the crisis to stem any form of environmental degradation that could be the outcome of water crisis in that estate,” he said.

  • WCP to launch first learning platform

    The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Coordination Project (WCP) is set to launch Nigeria’s first learning platform on urban water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) known as  Community of Practice (CoP) to facilitate the knowledge exchange within the sector.

    To ensure that it is informative, the WCP team discussed its design with donors, government officials, development practitioners, utility management, civil society organisation representatives, and other stakeholders.

    Last August, Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu introduced the Community of Practice at the National Council of Water Resources, in Akure, Ondo State.

    In November, the WASH Coordination Project made the CoP online learning platform available.

    The website, https://www.urbanwashcop.ng, includes a research centre with WASH documents, a practitioner’s toolkit with a variety of tools for individuals involved in the provision of WASH services, and an Opportunities page with information on available jobs, tenders, as well as grants within the urban WASH sector in Nigeria, among numerous other resources on urban WASH.

    According to the WCP Chief of Party, Timeyin Uwejamomere, utilities that have implemented reforms and, as a result, are closer to offering sustainable services partly attribute this achievement to peer-to-peer learning and knowledge development support. He, therefore, hopes the CoP will serve as a learning platform for WASH practitioners to help water utilities fast-track the implementation of reforms.

    The WCP is a two-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Nigeria. It seeks to achieve the benefits of improved health and well-being for Nigerians through increased and more financially sustainable access to WASH services, and to build the confidence of the public in the government’s ability to deliver basic services in Bauchi and Kaduna states.

    The Development Innovations Group, a United States-based firm with offices in Kaduna and Bauchi is the lead implementer of the WCP.

    WCP will support the maintenance of the website until the project ends on October 31, when it would be responsible for maintaining the CoP.

  • Osun targets five million trees to control climate change

    Osun State Governor Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola  said the state government has planted three million trees to mitigate climate change effects.

    In a statement, the governor’s media aide, Sola Fasure, said Aregbesola stated  this at a meeting with members of the African Forest Forum in Osogbo, the state capital.

    The governor said the government was targeting five million trees, insisting that Africa did not deserve to suffer the bad effect of climate change, if its forests were properly preserved.

    Aregbesola blamed the care-free attitude of past leaders on the development of forestry and efficient management as cause of the challenges posed by climate change in Nigeria.

    He expressed displeasure over the way natural rain forests were being managed, urging African leaders to develop a modality to strengthen forest management.

    The forum’s Executive Secretary, Godwin Kanero, said the forum recorded successes in its public enlightenment programmes.

    Kanero said the forum was established 10 years ago to find a solution to the environmental challenges occasioned by deforestation.

    “We are concerned about climate change because we have been informed on the need for humanity to preserve natural environment to curtail its menace,” Kanero added.

  • States advised to remove hindrances to land ownership for river basins

    The Federal Ministry of Water Resources has called on state governments to remove all barriers preventing the River Basins from having rights to land ownership.

    The Director, River Basin Operations and Inspectorate, Mr John Ochigbo, said doing this would promote the realisation of the food security target of the country through investment in agriculture.

    According to him, the government alone cannot meet the country’s agriculture needs, citing challenges of insufficient funds, saying Nigerians need to take ownership of these programmes.

    He said there was  need for states governments to remove all encumbrances on land ownership and acquisition, saying this was one of the challenges facing the river basins in the country.

    “One of the encumbrances we have is around land acquisition, and this is the area that we need the cooperation of the state governments to facilitate the issuance of titles to river basins for them to be able to acquire necessary lands to develop and hand over to farmers.

    “We call on the states governments to assist us in facilitating the release and acquisition of lands for farming in their various states.

    “I want to use this opportunity to invite investors who are interested in this sector to come and join us in this effort, the government does not have sufficient funds to do it all alone, so we need the funds of the private sector to come into this business,’’told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that

    He noted that the minister of water resources had in the last one month appealed to the Economic Council and the governors to assist the ministry and the Federal Government to remove all encumbrances around land acquisition.

    According to him, doing so will make it possible for the goals and targets of the river basins to be attainable, so we can launch fully into this programme.

    Ochigbo said the ministry was working to reverse the ugly trend which saw abandonment and years of incomplete projects in the basins.

    This he noted would be done through the formulation of a Blueprint and Action plan to repositioning the River Basins in the country, hence the promotion of agriculture.

    According to him, part of the programme is the inauguration of the Graduate and Youth Empowerment Programme which has benefited no fewer than 500 unemployed youths.

    He said the ministry was optimistic that with continued support and commitment, the Programme would go a long way in promoting food security and job creation.

    The director said the department had been equipped with technical staff, approval and appointment of boards of River Basin development Authorities to ensure commitment to change the narratives of revitalising the basins for self-sufficiency.

    He said the minister was already working to ensure procurement of new earth moving equipment to see that they meet the food security need of the nation, saying the obsolete ones were being disposed.

    The director said implementation of the National Irrigation Policy had led to the development of more hectares of land for irrigation farming, adding that responses have already been received from commercial farmers.

    He said: “We have received several applications from farmers that are asking for land to engage the commercial farming.’’

    He expressed optimism that in few years to come, Nigerians would begin to see the investment of the present administration in the river basins.

    NAN reports that the Department of River Basin Operations is in charge of coordinating activities of the 12 River Basin Development Authorities.

  • Abia delegation to understudy Lagos housing policy

    A delegation of the Abia State Ministry of Housing, has visited the Lagos State Ministry of Housing to understudy its housing policy.

    The delegation was led by the Abia State Commissioner for Housing, Mr. James Okpara.

    Addressing his Lagos counterpart, Okpara, who put the housing deficit figure of the state at about 1.5 million units, said upon his assumption of office last year, he found that the state had no policy on housing. This, he said, necessitated the visit to Lagos to enable them understudy the system of the “Centre of Excellence” with a view to replicating the various housing projects of the Lagos State government and policy in Abia State.

    “I promised that even if it is the only thing I do before leaving office, it must be done.  Housing policy is not being taken very seriously in many states but Lagos is the most advanced state in the country and we know that we can get the best from here, so, we want to learn how the state is doing it and succeeding.”

    The delegation was treated to a video presentation on the housing strides in the state and its policy now at draft stage and awaiting approval, followed by a tour of some of the project sites in Igando, Lagos.

    Commending the state after the tour, Okpara said: “The policy is good, we couldn’t expect any less from Lagos State being the centre of excellence, what we learnt will go a long way in helping us with our vision. We will take part of it, Lagos and Abia are not the same but there are some parameters that will be the same, so, we will take those that suit the state,” Okpara said.

    The Lagos State Commissioner for Housing, Mr. Gbolahan Lawal, told his guests that the state’s housing policy would be fully ready in May. Besides, he informed that delegation that the government planned to increase its Gross Domestic Product through housing and the policy would facilitate the process.

    “The housing policy for Lagos is almost ready, the last administration started it and we continued from where it stopped and fine-tuned it. The draft is now ready and waiting for the approval of the Lagos State House of Assembly. It will be ready before the end of May,” he said.

    He also noted that the state had created programmes on housing to bridge the three million housing deficit.

  • ‘Why Land Use Decree must be expunged’

    Forty years after the promulgation of the Land Use Decree – Decree 6 of 1978 by the retired General Olusegun Obasanjo’s military regime, a stakeholder in building construction has urged the National Assembly to, as a matter of urgency, expunge the law from the Constitution. The decree, which was promulgated on March 29, 1978, was to become part of the Constitution barely a year later, when the military handed over to the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. It then became an  Act.

    A Principal Partner in a firm of estate surveyors and valuers, Kola Akomolede and Co, Chief Kola Akomolede, in a position paper on the need for the law to be expunged, contended that a law made 40 years ago, vesting all land in a state in the “Military Governor”  needed to be amended to read “Governor” since the country is no longer under military rule.

    “The law vested all land in any state in the Military Governor of the state without giving the Federal Government power to acquire land in the states. Before the law, the power of “eminent domain” existed for the Federal Government to invoke if it needed to acquire land in any part of the Federation for overriding public purposes.

    “Under the Land Use Act, the Federal Government must go and beg the states for land in order to do anything in the state no matter how important it is to national affair. I think the Federal Government should have an unfettered access to land in any part of the Federation for public uses,” he said.

    Akomolede lamented that the law, as it were, allows a person to own a maximum of half a hectare of undeveloped land at any particular time. This, he explained, is not good for estate developers, who need several hectares to develop houses for public habitation. To him, all allocations to developers or industrialist, which exceed half a hectare, is a violation of the law.

    Taking a cursory look at the law and areas of grave concern, the estate surveyor and valuer noted that the Land Use Act made provisions for the establishment of land use and allocation committees, whose purpose is to advise governors on the management and allocation of land in their states.

    According to him, such a committees do not seem to exist any longer. This development, he explained, has given room to the “Governor” to be the sole allocator of land, thereby creating a monopoly of the authority to allocate land.

    “The law should, therefore, be amended to make it compulsory for state governors to always have a Land Use and Allocation Committee in place for land allocation to be valid. This will curb the abuses we have witnessed all over  the country in the way state land is being distributed to governors’ family members and their cronies  only,” he argued.

    Furthermore, Akomolede said there is a need to revisit the clause on “Governors’ consent” to all subsequent transactions because it has become a clog in the wheel of progress in the process of transfer of interest in land in some states. Besides, he said, some states have turned this clause into a money making exercise by demanding a very high percentage of the value of the land as consent fees. For instance, Akomolede explained that the consent fees, which used to be 15 per cent of land value in Lagos State, but reduced to three per cent recently after much pressure, is still too high. He revealed that besides the monetary payment, the process of obtaining the consent can be very tortuous and time consuming, hence, the clause should be expunged or a procedure which will be less cumbersome and expensive to be put in place.

    The aspect that deals with compensation for land whose Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) has been revoked, he argued, is the most unfair and oppressive of the entire law (Section 29-33). For example, he explained, it limits compensation to only improvements on the land and ground rent paid in the year of acquisition.

    “This means that if you buy a piece of land today for N100 million and while you are perfecting your title and the land is acquired for public purposes, you will be entitled to compensation for only the ground rent paid in the year of acquisition. You will not be compensated for the purchase price, which you paid at all. This section further goes to say that if you are provided an alternative to your acquired property and the value of the alternative is higher than the value of your property, you shall be made to pay the difference. But if it is lower, you will not be entitled to the difference.

    “The principle of compensation is to put you in the same position as you were before your property was acquired. Above cannot do that. There is, therefore, the need to revisit this section and make it more equitable and fair to all concerned,” he said.

    Some part of the Land Use Act, especially the area of compensation, is in conflict with the constitution. The 1979 Constitution has provided that “no person’s property shall be acquired without adequate compensation”, whereas  Sections 29 – 33 of the Land Use Act do not make provision for adequate compensation, thereby creating a conflict. Since the Land Use Act has been made part of the same constitution, this conflict must be removed.

    Akomolede further contended: “There has also been a little controversy over the real status of a Certificate  of Occupancy (C of O). Is it a title to land or a mere evidence of occupation of the land as the name suggests? Sometimes ago, a minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) woke up one day and cancelled or revoked all C of Os on all land in the FCT because some were defective or obtained fraudulently. All allottees were then directed to recertify their documents and get another C of O. If the C of Os were title like the previous land certificate or deed of conveyance, it would not have been possible to cancel them by such a mere directive.”

    He lamented that since the promulgation of the decree, banks and other financial institutions have not been accepting bare land, irrespective of the size and value, as collateral for loans and advances, despite the high price paid to purchase same. This, he explained, is as a result of the compensation clause, which has nothing for the owner of land if its C of O is revoked.

    This, he said, has been a source of serious problem for those who have land and will like to use it as collateral for loans either to develop the land or for other businesses, adding that the value of land can be greater than the value of the development on it in most high end locations.

    To him, it is not right to ignore the value of the land and pay compensations only on the land, noting: “This is one more way that the Land Use Act is unfavourable towards the housing development in the country.”

    He continued:“The Land Use Decree has been operating for 40 years and we have all seen the areas that need amendment in order to reduce the inconveniences and illegalities contained therein. The National Assembly must, therefore, take a serious look at the law and either set in motion the machinery to carry out a review or remove the law from the constitution to make it amenable to review as and when the need arises,” Akomolede concluded.

  • Battle for NHF control rages on

    A proposed amendment to the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board (FGSHLB) Act, before the House of Representatives, has set the stage for federal public servants to derive guaranteed benefits from their contributions to the National Housing Fund (NHF). An Abuja public analyst, Isaiah Abraham, writes that if the amendment scales through, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria’s (FMBN) in the Housing Fund scheme, would have been broken.

    Proposal before the House of representative committee seeking to transfer 50 percent of the contributions of Federal civil servants from the National Housing Fund (NHF), to the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board (FGSHLB), if passed into law, may change the fortunes of civil servants desirous of owning their own houses. The NHF Act, which became operation in 1993, compels workers to contribute two and half per cent of their salaries, deductible at source, to the fund. It also empowers the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), the power to manage the funds contributed by workers.

    However, there is a snag in the Act; the FMBN operates as a secondary mortgage institution, and as such does not deal with individual contributors, making access to the fund by contributors challenging.

    Since 2000, the organised labour has been kicking against the continued contribution by workers to the NHF on the ground that there was no guaranteed benefit. Labour’s grouse against the scheme was that as at 2006, about 1.8 million workers were registered from 17,132 employers,  under the NHF,  with a contribution of about N6 billion, but according to labour, only less than N280 million has been disbursed to about 446 contributors as loans.

    Labour further claimed that between 1993 and 2006, about N20 billion has been contributed by workers to the NHF without any widespread benefit, closing the doors against the Federal Government Staff Housing Board, which has been operating a social welfare scheme by providing houses for  Federal Government workers since 1924,  in the cold.

    Under the proposed amendment of the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board Act, Section 8 of the Bill is proposing that 50 per cent of Federal Public Service contributions to the NHF should be channeled to the Loans Board to guarantee contributors’ access to the fund.

    In his lead presentation at the a Public Hearing, conducted by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Service Matters, on March 27, 2018, Director, Legal Services, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, Mr. Emmanuel Omonowa, proposed that “in view of the fact that contributions to the NHF is being done by Federal Public Employees, 50 per cent should be ordered in the Act to be amended to be paid to the loans Board”.

    In justifying this position, Omonowa argued that upon a civil servant retirement, he is asked to bring a certificate from the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board to indicate that he is not indebted to the Board. “So, if these are the people contributing and they must come to the Board to obtain a certificate to show that they do not owe, why not put their contribution here?  So that when they come for their certificate, if they have not obtained any loan, then you put their contributions together and give it to them.”

    Instead, he said, what obtains is that deductions are made at source from public servants’ salaries and given to the primary mortgage institutions to build houses that civil servants cannot buy, adding that  the contributor, who should be helped to put money together to own a House, cannot own a House and cannot get his contributions back. “This ought not to continue, so that we do not have our senior citizens, retiring with heart attack,”he said.

    FGSHLB Executive Secretary,  Mrs. Hannatu Adamu Fika, debunked claims that the FMBN has been funding the activities of the Board. She maintained that the only partnership that exists between the board and the FMBN was initiated to douse tension among workers.

    “Recently, in other to douse the tension among contributors to the NHF from the public service, we were able to broker renovation loans of N1 million. For the past two years, FMBN has been giving us N1.5 billion; this amount cannot fund the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board. Our funds come from the government and even the N1.5 billion that they have been giving us, there have been schools of thought that we are not a PMI (Primary Mortgage Institution), and it should be discontinued. So, the issue of they (Federal Mortgage Bank) funding us is not completely true,” Fika said.

    But at the committee hearing, a representative of the FMBN revealed that the NHF Act, which empowers the mortgage bank to manage the affairs of the fund, is opened to all contributors to the Fund, insisting that Civil Servants and then the Public sectors have been benefitting from it. The representative further explained that although the Act provided for the monies collected (through NHF), to be channeled through Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs), for lending to contributors, the bank has been seeking to amend its our own Act and then the NHF Act, to meet the realities of the present time.

    He added that in an effort to ensure that civil servants that cannot afford the equity contributions for mortgage are catered for, the Bank came up with the product, “Home Renovation Loan,” so that most of them, who cannot go through the NHF, to access funding for building or to buy a House outright, can at least, renovate their existing homes. The same goes for the Federal Integrated Staff Housing (FISH) product too, which is targeted at ensuring that houses are delivered to civil servants all over the Federation.

    But labour disagreed. Speaking through one of its representatives on the Board of the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, Mr. Ejiofor, the group said: “The NHF, who contributes to it? As at today, largely, it is Federal Employees who contribute. As a result, you use the funds of Federal Employees to fund Mortgage owners or Mortgage system, in which the workers, themselves, cannot pay the terms. That is the critical issue. State governments, most of them, are not in that scheme and we are saying that Federal Public Employees, who are the main contributors, as of today, must benefit more. Does the NHF give annual returns?”

    Continuing, he lamented that workers and contributors to the NHF would retire or die, and their contributions to the fund is not refunded on time. For him, the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board exist wholly for federal public employees, and as a result the bulk of their contribution should go there. That is equity. “But to take the contributions of poor workers and fund mortgage institutions, who in most cases, provide Housing Schemes for the rich is an aberration,” Ejiofor maintained.

    Similarly, a representative of Senior Civil Servants Association of Nigeria, Mr. Apebo Joshua, told the House committee the contribution of public servants should be transferred to the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board. This, he argued, is because his colleagues do not benefit from their contributions to the NHF being managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria.

    “Even if the FMBN gives private developers money to build houses, they would build houses that are not affordable by civil servants. The contributions to NHF should be channeled to the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board, so that we can be able to access loans,” he said. However, between the old order and the proposed new order, in the administration of the National Housing Fund, it is fingers crossed, as the Bill continues its legislative journey.