REMARKS BY THE HON. MINISTER OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, ARC. AHMED MUSA DANGIWA AT A MEETING WITH THE NEW MANAGEMENT TEAMS OF THE FEDERAL MORTGAGE BANK OF NIGERIA (FMBN) AND THE FEDERAL HOUSING AUTHORITY (FHA) ON MONDAY 19TH FEBRUARY 2024
Protocols
1. It is my pleasure to welcome on board what I call The Renewed Hope Executive Management Teams of Nigeria’s two premier federal housing agencies – The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA).
2. These appointments, by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR on Thursday, 15th February 2024 mark the beginning of a renewed hope era at these two agencies.
3. So, before we proceed, let us take the National Pledge to mark the seriousness of the moment.
4. Like I said earlier, this is the renewed hope era for housing and urban development. All of you who have been honored and privileged to lead these institutions must align with the vision. In doing your work you must put Nigeria first. You must make Nigerians the center of the work that you do. And you must ensure that we deliver results.
5. You must thank Mr. President for giving you this national assignment. He has carefully selected you based on your pedigree, experience, and capacity to contribute towards the actualization of the Renewed Hope Agenda for housing and urban development.
6. So, you must see your appointments first, as a privilege to be chosen out of millions of Nigerians, second as a call to serve the country at a very trying time, and third as an opportunity to be part of the historic transformation of the sector under the leadership of Mr. President.
7. You have a responsibility to approach your work as Managing Directors and Executive Directors with the urgency that is required. The inefficiencies of the past decades have compounded the problems that we face in the housing industry today. As you all know, to have a strong a strong economy, better life, the housing sector must work to create jobs, contribute to GDP and boost health and productivity.
8. His Excellency understands the importance of housing, its catalytic role to national development and economic growth. That is why he made the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development a standalone Ministry and is moving with speed to reform the housing sector.
9. The two institutions that you now lead are Nigeria’s oldest federal government-owned housing delivery agencies. These institutions are not in good form. You are coming on board as doctors who would help to fix them, so that they can be strong, and have the capacity to meet the need of Nigerians for housing so Mr. President can deliver on his promise.
10. I will start with the Federal Housing Authority which was set up in 1973. I remember that we marked the 50th year anniversary last year. I used the word “marked” deliberately because after 50-years, there was not much to celebrate.
11. Like I said at the event, it is important for us to confront the truth of FHA’s history to learn the lessons from there. I therefore expect the new FHA Management to be mindful of this. It is only on this basis that we can begin the process of building a new FHA that delivers on its mandate.
12. As you may recall, in 1973, FHA was created with the mandate to provide housing to low- and medium-income earners nationwide. These functions were further expanded under the 2012 National Housing Policy to include the following key provisions.
1. To develop and manage real estate on a commercial basis in all states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
2. To provide sites and services for all income groups.
3. To execute housing programmes in the public interest as may be approved by the Federal Government and
4. To mobilize offshore funding for housing development.
13. Pursuant to the re-defined roles, the National Council on Privatization in May 2013, approved FHA’s commercialization. The aim was to reduce the magnitude and scope of financial support of the Federal Government and allow the Authority to adapt to changing business requirements. At this time FHA had only managed to deliver 37,000 houses in its 40 years of existence.
14. Ten years after commercialization, records show that FHA has only delivered a cumulative of just over 50,000 housing units. That shows an average of 1,000 houses per year in 50 years. This is clearly not a good result, especially from Nigeria’s foremost housing agency that has so many institutional advantages that it can leverage to deliver more results. This includes free access to land from the federal government in all layouts and new districts, relationships with other government entities like the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and strategic positioning to engage in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) with reputable developers given its name recognition as a government agency.
15. PPPs that the FHA has entered over the years have delivered little or no value to the country. We have a serious housing crisis and current efforts; speed of delivery and strategies must be increased to meet the challenge. The new FHA Management must ensure that it sets a different and progressive tone for the agency under the renewed hope era. I expect you to provide leadership that is visionary, can innovate, think outside the box, while tackling problems. I want to see a reformed, more efficient, and capable Federal Housing Authority (FHA) that would have the financial strength to deliver more on its mandate.
16. As you may be aware, FHA is the one agency that has the license to play in all income segments, so the Ministry expects the FHA to make judicious use of this advantage in the broad strategy of the government to deliver housing to Nigerians. I want to see the FHA go to the capital market, issue bonds, and raise funding to deliver mass housing projects across the country, market them, payback the loans, and declare profit. In the next fifty years, we expect that FHA would be celebrating millions of homes built and successfully delivered to Nigerians.
17. As the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, I am ready to provide the necessary leadership that is required to move FHA forward. This includes granting the necessary Ministerial support for FHA to access funding from international development finance institutions such as Shelter Afrique. The Shelter Afrique Development Bank Board and Management Team are currently on a working mission to Nigeria. I have asked them to meet with both FHA and FMBN later today to map out points of partnerships.
18. The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) is also critical to the actualization of the Renewed Hope Vision for Housing. Its own case holds personal significance to me. I remember years ago; I was here at the Ministry after my appointment as MD/CE of FMBN to report to my predecessor. Then I was on the other side. Today I am on this side. That is the way of God, and I am thankful to Mr. President for the opportunity and the promotion. This is the first time someone moved from being MD of FMBN to Minister of Housing.
19. Like I said at the 2024 Annual Management Retreat recently, this is another God given opportunity to take FMBN to the next level. My charge to the new Management Team is the same as the one I gave the outgone Management; you will be seeing a lot of pressure from me. This is because I expect you to do ten times better than I did.
20. What this means is that FMBN must transform. FMBN must innovate. And FMBN must lead a new era of massive housing development and delivery even in these difficult times of high construction costs and lower incomes. This requires a radically new mindset, thinking out of the box and identifying the opportunities that these challenges present.
21. For me FMBN faces several fundamental challenges that must be dealt with, and we have already set the ball rolling with the inauguration of the Housing Institutions’ Reform Task Teams under the Chairman of Adesemoye with representatives from the Bank.
22. As you are all aware the task of the Tast Team is to develop a robust framework for ensuring that housing agencies under the supervision of the Ministry are optimized to deliver effectively on the Renewed Hope Vision for the provision of quality, decent and affordable homes to Nigerians.
23. This includes a thorough review and facilitation of necessary legislative amendments of relevant housing industry laws including the National Housing Fund (NHF) Act,1992, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) Establishment Act, 1993. A lot of work has already been done in this regard, having achieved successful passage of the amendments to the two Bills during my stewardship as MD/CE of the Bank by the two chambers of the National Assembly while Presidential assent was declined.
24. The Housing Institution Reform Task Team comprises housing industry experts, stakeholders, agency representatives, professional bodies, and academia. The reforms and legislative amendments that the Reform Team will carry out in collaboration with stakeholders and the National Assembly will be the most comprehensive set ever done in the history of Housing and Urban Development in Nigeria.
25. FMBN is also a key part of the Multi-Agency Project Delivery Task Team which we inaugurated. The aim is to ensure that all housing agencies under the supervision of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development work collaboratively towards optimizing their strengths to deliver decent and affordable housing to Nigerians.
26. I expect strong participation of the FMBN in this Team as it is expected to outline frameworks for synergy between the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (FMHUD), Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and Family Homes Funds Limited (FHFL) and propose processes to eliminate bottlenecks in housing development to increase the national housing stock, amongst others.
27. But it is important to say that while these teams are working and we expect them to come up with blueprints in the next few weeks ahead, I expect the new Management to hit the ground running, giving each day in the office to the transformation process. This applies to FHA too. FMBN must work to improve customer service delivery and to do this requires the completion and full operationalization of the Core Banking Application.
28. I am also committed to the N500billion Recapitalization of the Bank. Its been in the pipeline for too long. Now is the time to get it done.
29. FMBN should also make greater effort towards reducing its non-performing loan portfolio and the clearance of backlog of its audited accounts. A major step to take in this regard to ensure efficient processing and approval of corresponding NHF loans for all completed projects to ensure effective offtake and inter-account settlement to clean up the Bank’s books.
30. I also expect to see measurable progress in the implementation of the revised 5-Year Strategic Plan.
31. Now to FMBN Statistics: Between 1992 and December 2023, FMBN had only delivered a meager 38,756 houses. This means over a 31-year time frame, FMBN was doing a yearly average of 1,250, just slightly better than FHA. The bank also disbursed a total of N426bn in mortgage loans and created about 24,629 mortgage loans.
32. As it is with FHA, so it is with FMBN. What has been done is little compared to the size of the problem that we face.
33. In fact, I am proud to say that the only bright spot in FMBN’s 31-year history based on facts and statistics that can be checked is my five-year term between 2017 to 2022 where I was able to post results that exceeded all that was achieved over the 25 preceding years of the Bank.
34. And that is why the reform of the housing sector and that of federal housing agencies was made a key part of Mr. President’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
35. So, I want you all to know that these appointments didn’t just happen out of the blue. They are part of a carefully planned Strategic Broad Renewed Hope Roadmap towards the actualization of Mr. President’s vision for the housing sector.
36. Earlier I called you Renewed Hope Executive Management Teams of Federal Housing Agencies for three key reasons.
• Nigerians have given Mr. President a mandate to provide decent and affordable housing to them and to fix urban development challenges.
• Mr. President has given me that job to deliver using the FMBN and FHA as institutional tools.
• You are the focal persons at these agencies tasked with making sure that Mr President's promise of increased housing to Nigerians is fulfilled.
37. So, today, I am not telling you “Congratulations”.
38. Your appointment is a privilege, and not an invitation to make merry and enrich yourselves.
39. I have my deliverables and you are to fashion out ways to deliver on them. If you work hard and deliver, you will stay. If you don’t work hard and fail to deliver, you will leave before your term. I believe that is a strong message that Mr President has already passed across to all appointees. Don’t look at the 5-year term, look at your ability to meet the targets for every review session. Because when it comes to review and KPIs – I won't be looking at your faces. What we want is action, progress, improved customer service delivery and more Nigerians owning homes.
40. 16. Both the FMBN and FHA Management Teams must see this as a new beginning for real progress. This must reflect in the quantum of houses delivered and fully occupied by Nigerians.
41. 17. For the FMBN, we expect that you meet and exceed the targets in your Action Plan.
42. The delivery of at least 5,000 new homes annually; with a significant portion of this through the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Programme.
43. Disbursement of mortgage loans to at least 20,000 Nigerians annually, and this will mean quicker turnaround time and a more efficient customer service.
44. Increased National Housing Fund (NHF) collection by expanding the subscription net for more Nigerians. You can achieve this by making it easier to accommodate more private sector players in the scheme.
45. Speedy rollout of the Diaspora Mortgage Scheme to facilitate an increase in NHF collection and the provision of more houses to Nigerians.
46. Up-to-date audited accounts and corporate stability to facilitate fruitful cooperation with financing institutions like Shelter Afrique Development Bank.
47. For the FHA, I expect to see more flexibility and innovation in its operations rather than the usual, conventional, docile way of doing things.
48. The ministry expects the FHA to make judicious use of its license to operate across all income segments in the broad strategy of the government to deliver housing to Nigerians.
49. We expect to see the FHA get more funding from the capital market by issuing bonds to deliver mass housing projects across the country, market them, pay back the loans, and declare profit.
50. We expect to see the FHA delivering a minimum of 5,000 houses annually to Nigerians.
51. The FHA should also take advantage of its status as an agency without budgetary allocations to be inventive, partner with credible investors and local and international financing partners to deliver more houses to Nigerians.
52. We will keep track as a Ministry and monitor your progress on a year-to-year basis. Like I said earlier, your KPIs are the only things that matter because we have a responsibility to Nigerians, and we cannot afford to fail.
53. On our part, we will continue to work to strengthen your capacities and break down the limitations that hamper your performance.
54. Let me, once again, reiterate the seriousness of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, to ensure the full implementation of the Renewed Hope Agenda for Housing and Urban Development. We can already see that the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Programme is one of the signpost projects of his administration. He will not tolerate failure or mediocrity, and neither will I.
55. 24. I will be the first to acknowledge that you now carry a huge responsibility on your shoulders; one that is time-bound and measurable. I expect that you see this not just as an opportunity to write your name in the annals of history, but also to be a part of the team that looked the challenges to housing delivery in the face and overcame them with innovation, strong commitment, transparency, and a great sense of responsibility and urgency.
56. This is because you have been called, selected, and appointed to serve Nigeria our country in those roles.
Thank you.
