Jonathan creates Mortgage Refinance Company of Nigeria (NMRC) to help Housing

The Nigerian President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan reckons that at least 56 trillion Naira (about $350 billion) is needed to alleviate the deficit while the World Bank put the estimate at 59.5 trillion Naira. As the country enters its 54th year as an independent nation, the government is taking the bull by the horn by creating the Mortgage Refinance Company of Nigeria (NMRC), an institution designed to bridge the funding cost of residential mortgages by promoting the availability and affordability of good housing through increased access to liquidity and longer-terms funds in the mortgage market.

Speaking to an assembly of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) in Abuja in November 2013, President Jonathan said if the program is successful, it would significantly improve the country’s home ownership rate – currently at about 25 percent. “Housing associated facilities are grossly inadequate and millions of citizens live in substandard environments or slums plagued by squalor and lacking basic amenities of life,” Jonathan told the gathering. “To reverse this trend, my government recently announced plans to establish the [NMRC]. This corporation is intended to provide funding for the housing and construction sector.”

The Nigerian government’s cost estimate is based on a rather conservative assumption of 3.5 million Naira per housing unit. And analysts believe that the colossal amount needed to solve the problem cannot be funded only through government, but also through the injection of private funds.

- ibtimes