NLC and FMBN cannot agree on the N238 billion national housing fund.

The management of the contributory National Housing Fund has been a point of contention between the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Labour Congress.The NHF is a spin-off of the NHF Act of 1992, which requires all employers—public and private—to send money to the fund on a monthly basis.The Federal Government of Nigeria launched this project to raise money to build reasonably priced homes for its citizens.

The workers union and the country’s leading mortgage institutions were at odds because the union had threatened to withdraw from the contributory funds because it was not happy with the way the fund was being managed.

Speaking exclusively to The Repository, Mrs. Timan Elayo, the Group Head of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, refuted assertions made by Joe Ajaero, the President of the NLC, during an investigative hearing conducted by an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives, stating that corruption had been allowed to proliferate in the system due to administrative bottlenecks in the mortgage scheme application process.

She claimed that although the FMBN had received “a large number” of applications for the NHF, financial limitations prevented it from fulfilling every request.

She continued by saying that other requests for mortgages were turned down since the applicants weren’t qualified.

“Oh yes, workers are accessing mortgage,” she remarked. That assertion most likely stems from the belief that everyone who wishes to apply for a mortgage would be able to do so.

That is not feasible, given the aggregate number of Nigerians expressing interest in the dwellings, in comparison to the accessible funds.”You’ll understand that fulfilling every request is not feasible. First and foremost, there is a financial limitation that will make it harder to fulfil demands. But a lot of them are being served to the best of our ability and ability with the resources at hand.

In an interview with The Repository, Chris Onyeka, the National Secretary-General of the NLC, refuted the FMBN’s assertion that mortgages were being obtained by Nigerian employees via the NHF.Onyeka charged that the FMBN had failed to give the NHF’s intended beneficiaries accurate records of the monies.

“If people are accessing it, who are they?” Onyeka questioned. The issue is that these funds are stored somewhere, and the privileged few are the only ones who can access them. We own the money. It must be within our reach. There need to be no obstacles in the way of our using our money.