(Ecofin Agency) - The Federal Government of Nigeria has secured a $300 million World Bank facility to support a new housing scheme designed to improve access to finance for housing projects in the country.

Known as the National Housing Finance Programme (NHFP), the scheme is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) aimed at improving low-income earners’ access to own personal homes with a guaranteed credit from the CBN.

According to the CBN deputy director, Other Financial Institutions, Adedeji Adesemoye, the World Bank loan is an International Development Association (IDA) facility which has a repayment period of 40 years. It would be managed by nine Micro-Finance Institutions (MFI) across the country.

“It is designed to de-risk the sector through private partnership. We had opportunity to access an IDA facility which is a 40 years loan designed to assist in four different components. But for institution to finance this kind of asset creation, we need to have institutions that will have access to a long term debt capital. So today, we are providing Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company ( NMRC ) with a long term tier two capital. The total loan we got is $300m but $250m will be given to NMRC. It’s a tier two capital, i.e a long term debt with almost less than one per cent commission and interest charge,” Adesemoye said.

The Deputy Director added that two tranches of the loan had already been disbursed.

Anita Fatunji