TUC lauds FG, FMBN on 10 percent mortgage waiver

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has commended the federal government for the waiver of the initial payment of 10 per cent housing equity on mortgages below N5 million from housing offtakers.

TUC President Bobboi Kaigama gave the commendation in Abuja.

The federal government recently approved that henceforth mortgages below N5 million would not attract the initial payment of 10 per cent equity from offtakers.

According to him, this is to demonstrate its commitment to the provision of affordable housing to Nigerians, especially the low income earners.

Bobboi noted that the waiver was a welcome development, especially in this period of economic recession in the country.

“The government is using the same fund contributed by workers to build houses for them, if it can also give out houses at much lower rate it will be a nice development because it is workers’ contributions.

“The federal government has no contribution in the fund and the worker’s representatives do not have a say on how the funds are being managed,” he also noted.

Commending the effort of the government, he said it needed to do more in the course of delivering houses to Nigerians.

The TUC president, however, said the number of houses that have been delivered to workers since the constitution of the National Housing Fund (NHF) programme was not impressive compared to the percentage of workers contributing to the fund.

He, therefore called for an urgent review of the NHF law, adding that the representatives of Nigerian workers should be on the board of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN).