By Linus Aleke, Abuja

The House of Representatives has summoned the Accountant-General of the Federation to explain why funds deducted from workers’ salaries were not remitted to the National Housing Fund.

The summons followed the ongoing investigation by the House of Representatives ad hoc Committee on the non-remittances and non-utilisation of funds to the National Housing Fund.

The Accountant-General, the committee said, is to also explain why there are disparities in the deductions from workers from various agencies of government and why only N20 billion has been remitted to the Federal Mortgage Bank since 2011.

Representatives of the Director of the integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System, Ekwem Dem told the committee that while deductions from the salaries of workers were automatic, remittances were not automated.

The Director could not tell the committee how much has been deducted as Housing Fund from workers since 2011 saying even though they have the information, he needs to “query the system” before responding to the question.

Members of the committee had observed from documents presented to it by the Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System that N23, 000 was deducted from the University of Calabar for NHF for one month, while Federal Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi contributed N9, 000.

They asked the Accountant General to furnish the committee with information on what has been deducted from workers so far, when such money was deducted, and why the money had not been remitted.

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A member of the committee, Timehin Adelegbe said, “If the deduction is automated, the remittances should also be automated.”

The Committee also asked the Accountant-General to remit all deductions of the Housing fund remitted to the federal Mortgage Bank with immediate effect and receipt presented to the committee.

Managing Director of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Madu Hamman called the Committee to amend the act establishing the Bank and the National Housing Fund to give more effect to the operation of the NHF.

He said the Bank collected about N591.523bn as remittances from both the formal and informal sectors of the Nigerian economy since 2011 till date out of which N238.557bn was collected from government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.

He said the bank also has an outstanding payment of about N26.57bn with the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

Giving a breakdown of the outstanding payment, Hamman said, the Accountant-General erroneously deducted about N11.6bn from remittances of workers to the bank between October and December 2022 as part of government revenue mistaking the remittances to be revenue coming into the bank.

He said, “We had to explain to them that the money was remittances of workers contributions to the NHF before the deduction was stopped through Treasury Single Account.”

He also explained that between January 2022 and December 2022, the IPPIS failed to remit about N11.58bn deducted from workers’ salaries and another N3.35bn between April and July 2021.

He disclosed that contributors to the National Housing Fund are eligible for a full refund of their contributions over the years with accrued interest of two per cent upon retirement after attaining the age of 60 or inability to continue contributions due to incapacitation or death.

He noted that so far, the bank has refunded N66.67bn to 444,637, adding that out of the N591.52bn collected for the Nation Housing Fund within the period, about N347.57bn was invested in various projects financed by the Bank.

These projects, he said, include Cooperative Housing Development Loan (N44.02bn), NHF Mortgage loan (N139.09bn), Ministerial Pilot Housing Scheme (N38.037bn), TUC/NLC/NECA housing scheme (N31.659bn), Individual construction loan (N269.044m), Home Renovation Loan (N92.468bn) and Rent to Own (N2.021bn).

He also, listed some of the major challenges including over-concentration of Primary Mortgage Banks in Lagos and Abuja, while none exist in most states of the Federation, adding that only 34 primary mortgage Banks exist in the county.

He also said that the contradictions between the FMBN act and the CBN prudent guideline on single obligation limits for PMBs are affecting loan disbursement by the banks as well as lack of loan affordability by the majority of contributors as a result of low-income.