National Housing Fund (Establishment) Act, 2018: Analysis & Recommendations For Legislative Review

From a comparative analysis of the new NHF Act to the 1992 Act and an evaluation of the lackluster performance of the Fund since inception in 1992 to an overview of the moribund mortgage sector in Nigeria, it is submitted that the Fund needs to be grown and the mortgage sector needs to be deepened through an inclusive and incentivizing legal framework.

In order to successfully build Nigeria’s mortgage market without causing harm to the other equally vital sectors of the economy, it is recommended, besides the other suggested policy reform initiatives, that the new NHF Act be returned to the National Assembly for a new round of legislative action geared towards addressing its identified contentious provisions.

HISTORICAL OBJECTIVE OF THE FUND

The Fund was established under the 1992 Act purposely to:

1. facilitate mobilisation of fund for the provision of houses for Nigerians at affordable prices;

2. ensure constant supply of loans to Nigerians for building, purchasing and improvement of residential houses;

3. provide incentives for the capital market to invest in property development;

4. encourage the development of specific programmes that would ensure effective financing of housing development, in particular low cost housing for low income workers;

5. provide proper policy control over the allocation of resources and funds between the housing sector and other sectors of the Nigerian economy; and

6. provide long-term loans to mortgage institutions for on-lending to contributors to the Fund.

Whilst the above aims and objectives of the Fund have been retained in the new NHF Act, the primary purpose of the re-enactment was to “provide for additional sources of funding for effective financing of housing development in Nigeria”[2]. 

2 See the “Explanatory Memorandum” to the new NHF Act