Adeniyi Akinlusi is the President, Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria (MBAN) and Chief Executive Officer, TrustBond Mortgage Bank Plc.
The Mortgage Banking Association of Nigeria (MBAN) has said there would be accessible mortgage to people living across country states if government facilitates the much needed private sector partnership that would partner the mortgage banks.
Lack of adequate support in regulatory and legal frameworks, as well as long term funds to match long term investments have long been identified as the bane of the sector that has the potential to create millions of jobs and protect the economy from routine shocks.
The association’s executive, on courtesy call to The Guardian’s headquarter, in Lagos, recently, maintained that government’s partnership and sincere reappraisal of the sector, would create loans in order to reach out to more people with subsidised rate of affordable housing.
The immediate-past President of MBAN, Dr. Femi Johnson, reiterated that if state governments can leverage the amount of money provided in their budget for housing and partner with the private sector and other people and put funds together and create homes, chances are there that together, things can work a lot better.
“Even if the state governments use tax payers’ money and build houses for citizens and tell them to come and take at no interest rates, instead of building for 200 citizens for free in a year, it could be used to give 10,000 people houses at reduced interest rates,” he said.
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The President of MBAN, Adeniyi Akinlusi, stressed the need for governments to reduce the long period of time and procedures associated with title transfer of properties as it hampers the ease of doing business and extendedly, the financial inclusion.
“If title transfers take a shorter time, it will improve ease of doing business. If there is adequate mortgage law, investors from the private sector will come in handy and there will be inflow of money in the country,” he said.
The group therefore, propagated for what it described as “131 model” to tackle the issue of poor housing investment in the country and discouragement facing investors.
Explaing the formula, Akinlusi said that 1 is for the one per cent subsidy, while 3 is the maximum number of days to proper documentation of title and the other 1 represents one desk where the documentations is carried out.
“In some states, you will find close to 15 different desks to register title and by the time you get to the fifth desk, some papers are already missing, meanwhile it was complete when you submitted.
“You don’t need more than three desks for registration. The duration should be short, we don’t need more than three days for proper documentation to finalise title. The cost can be cut down. If we have one per cent as cost, a lot of people will not shy away from registering their title. When this is done, people can then go to the banks freely to pay.
The association’s Executive Secretary, Kayode Omotoso, harped on the need to ensure standards as it is a major step in attracting funds from capital market to make the sector sustainable, as well as derisking operations.
“To achieve this, we are working with relevant stakeholders including the Central Bank of Nigeria. We have come up with uniform mortgage underwriting standard for self-employed and those at the informal sector, so they can easily access funds to build their houses,” he said.
Source: G Business
