By ANGELA ATABO

The Federal Government has announced the allocation of 8,925 houses to deserving applicants nationwide under the National Housing Programme (NHP).

This is contained in a statement issued by Dr Marcus Ogunbiyi, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development in Abuja.

Ogunbiyi said the first batch of the allocation process was concluded after a review of the conditions and procedures for sales of houses under the NHP.

“Out of a total of 8925 applications that were received, 1,294 were for outright payment, 2408 for mortgage, 2184 for Rent to Own and 3039 were for Instalment payment modes.

“The offer of New Provisional Allocation Letters for the first batch of successful applicants under the Outright Payment mode are now ready.

“The successful subscribers would be contacted by the Federal Controllers of Housing and Urban Development in the states as well as the Chairman/CEO, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) from Thursday for collection.”

Ogunbiyi said that applicants under the Mortgage, Rent to own and Instalment payment modes who should be subscribers to the National Housing Fund (NHF) were presently undergoing profiling.

The permanent secretary noted that there were no completed houses in Abia, Lagos, Bayelsa, Rivers States and the FCT.

He said that allocation of houses in the listed states would be done after the completion of the housing units later in the year.

NAN reports that the NHF) is a Federal Government scheme, which entitles all Nigerians above the age of 21years in paid employment to a low interest, government funded loan.

Members of the scheme contribute 2.5 per cent of their monthly salary to the fund through Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria.

The maximum amount obtainable under the NHF used to be N5 million but has since been increased to N15 million.

The borrowed capital is repayable over a maximum of 30 years at the rate of six per cent interest. (NAN)

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