The Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday said it is collaborating with the Nigeria Mortgage Refinancing Company to address some of the major challenges affecting the delivery of affordable housing in the country.
The CBN Deputy Governor, Financial Systems Stability, Aisha Ahmad, said this in Abuja during a workshop on the Model Mortgage and Foreclosure Draft Bill.
The bill seeks to address some of the legal and administrative constraints to the housing sector.
It is also aimed at making lending to the housing sector less risky as well as create the enabling environment for the growth of the mortgage markets.
She said the need to tackle the challenges to the housing sector was borne out of the conviction that housing remains one of man’s primary needs.
For instance, she said from available statistics, Nigeria’s housing deficit currently stands at approximately 17 million, given an estimated demand of between 38 million and 44 million units that need to be provided.
Ahmad explained that despite this grim situation and the critical importance of housing, Nigeria’s housing stock stands at about 13 million for a population of about 180 million people.
Quoting a World Bank study, she said that that Nigeria requires about N60tn to address the housing deficit.
To address the challenges to housing delivery in Nigeria, she said there was need to tackle the issue of legal and administrative impediments particularly at the state level.
She said, “The contribution of the housing mortgage sector to the growth of the Nigerian economy does not give much to cheer either, as the sector constitutes less than one per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product as opposed to the situation in developed economies where the sector constitutes from 50 per cent to 60 per cent of GDP.
“The Center for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa highlighted legal and administrative restraints as some of the major hindrances to the growth of home ownership in Nigeria, rated even stronger than access to finance as a constraint.”
