The Executive secretary of the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board (FGSHLB)Dr. Hannatu Fika has commended the Buhari administration in terms of commitment of the regime in the provision of houses to the Civil Servants across board. She made this statement recently, presenting a scorecard of her 10 years stewardship at the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board (FGSHLB) and four years of President Muhammadu Buhari administration at the banquet of the board in the Federal Secretariat Complex, Abuja.
The Executive Secretary, asserted that 30, 258 public servants have so far benefitted from the Federal Housing Loans Programme since its establishment in 1924. She enthused that the board before she assumed office in 2009, gave 12,538 public servants loans for over a period of 85 years, while within the last 10 years, under her stewardship, about 17,720 public servants were given loans. “The board from 1954 till date has given loans to 30,258 beneficiaries.
The board has sustainable partnership with private developers for quality affordable social housing for public servants which has led to the commissioning of seven estates in Abuja,” she said.
Furthermore, the board in order to make obtaining loans more flexible and accessible for public servants, had removed the provision of collateral before a loan was given. Dr. Fika said hitherto, the board was being given zero allocation she fought tenaciously with other stake holders, the situation had changed as the board got N80m, N100m, N1bn and now N2bn in the last budgets and in the 2019 budget respectively.
She stated further that the board introduced a “buy back” to ease the burden of high interest rate placed on public servants due to the government’s monetisation policy.
Dr. Hannatu Fika, in her scorecard reiterated her legacies which include: emphasis on capacity building, general staff welfare and motivation, computerization and digitalisation of beneficiaries data base and applications, reforms of the laws establishing the board, Social Housing Partnership, Stake Holder Synergy, procurement sanity, and remarkably funding and revenue drive from zero allocation to where it stands today.
By Israel SG. Balogun,
