News Investigators/ The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has announced a record-breaking N103 billion collection for the National Housing Fund (NHF) in 2024, the highest in the bank’s history.
FMBN Managing Director and Chief Executive, Shehu Osidi, disclosed this at a press conference on Wednesday in Abuja to mark his one-year anniversary leading the bank’s management.
Mr Osidi stated that upon assuming office, the management set out a bold vision to transform FMBN by enhancing its efficiency, transparency, and impact on Nigeria’s housing and mortgage finance sector.
He emphasised that the focus had been on institutional reforms, financial sustainability, and stronger stakeholder collaboration to ensure the bank effectively delivered affordable housing solutions to Nigerians.
“Under the National Housing Fund (NHF) operations, our collections grew by N3 billion in 2024 resulting in total collection of N103 billion, compared to the N100 billion the bank recorded in 2023.
“This increase in NHF contributions demonstrates renewed trust and participation in the NHF scheme by Nigerian workers.”
Mr Osidi said that to further illustrate the improvements, a total of 658 employer organisations and 178,619 employees were registered in 2024 compared to 556 and 113,577 respectively in 2023.
He highlighted another major achievement: the return of Kano State civil servants to the NHF scheme after a 24-year absence.
To facilitate this, a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was signed between FMBN and the Kano State Government on Jan. 31.
Mr Osidi noted that this development would significantly boost NHF collections in 2025, given Kano state’s workforce of over 160,000 employees.
He further stated that FMBN had achieved notable financial improvements, recording an operational surplus of N11.58 billion in its 2024 management accounts.
“This is the first of such experience since FMBN came into existence over 30 years ago.
“Although this figure is expected to decrease significantly after applying impairment, we are taking a proactive approach to address all aspects of our operations that contribute to high impairments.
“This includes tackling the high volume of non-performing loans inherited by the current management..
“We are also pursuing with great efforts the recapitalisation of the bank. A grossly inadequate capital of N2.5 billion hinders the capacity of the bank to perform optimally.
“These achievements underscore our commitment to ensuring that FMBN remains a financially viable institution, capable of fulfilling its mandate of driving affordable homeownership in Nigeria,”he said
Mr Osidi stated that under the bank’s loan operations, a total of N71.5 billion was approved in the past year, a significant increase from N39.7 billion in 2023.
He further highlighted that under FMBN’s refund operations, N14.4 billion was refunded to 44,333 beneficiaries, compared to N13.2 billion refunded to 40,426 beneficiaries in 2023.
According to the managing director, FMBN is heavily weighed down by Non-Performing Loans (NPLs), due majorly to the quality of credit that the bank books.
He said when the management came on board ,it challenged the status quo and introduced stricter loan appraisal processes to improve credit quality, reduce loan defaults, and enhance recovery mechanisms.
He said that seven recovery task teams were inaugurated to recover delinquent loans across the country’s geo-political zones.
“As a direct result of this initiative, we have recovered N10.9 billion in bad loans through the recovery teams.
“This is in addition to our normal recovery activities which also yielded the sum N3.1 billion in 2024,”he said.
Significantly, Osidi stated that the Executive Management successfully resolved several long-standing NPL cases, with five currently awaiting final Board and Ministerial approval for exit.
NAN
