By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has urged the newly reconstituted Board members and Management Team of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) to see their appointment not as an opportunity for self-help but an opportunity to help others, especially to own a home, by rendering selfless service.
Fashola gave the charge yesterday in Abuja while inaugurating the 21-man board.
The minister stated that,”let me be very clear that this is a huge privilege for you as it has been for me, to be amongst the few Nigerians involved in the public service of our country”.
“Therefore, I will share with you the advice I have shared recently with an institution I inaugurated last week.
“We are not in our homes; we are in a public space, where we have to work with others in a team to achieve results. Those other people may not speak like us or dress like us, or even eat what we eat or pray like us. But they are part of us, a part of the diversity that we have been enriched with.
“If we manage our ego, we will realize that they are not different from us and we have a lot in common and we can learn a lot from each other”,Fashola stated.
He called on the board to ensure the completion of over 2,000 housing units that are at various stages of completion under Ministerial Pilot Housing Scheme.
” In addition to your responsibilities, I expect you to quickly advert your attention to the completion of the over 2,000 housing units at various levels of completion under the Ministerial Pilot Housing Scheme.”
Fashola warnedthat anything the new board would do that is not in accordance with the law will not be condoned.
“As a creature of law, you are forbidden from making the bank do anything that the law does not authorise, and you can become individually and corporately liable for non- compliance with the law,” he said.
According to the Minister, the warning became necessary because “in the tenure of previous boards and managements before this administration, the bank has been made to do things the law did not contemplate and this has resulted in hobbling liabilities which I regret to inform you that you must now confront and resolve”.
Fashola said, “I expect this management and board to bring to a lawful end, all other ventures into which the bank has dabbled which are not supported by law.
He however advised them to follow due process and to correct the anomalies of the past.
He also reminded the new board that their primary mandate was to reposition the mortgage bank as pre-eminent mortgage bank for Nigeria as envisaged by its founders, Fashola that informed why majority of the members are either bankers by training or bankers by work experience spanning several decades.
“The reason is clear, all the regulatory obligations that the bank has to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) must be complied with,” he said.
Responding, the Managing Director, FMBN, Hamman Madu, said the management and board would live up to the challenges and mandate of the government as touching the bank.
“We will ensure that the bank which is over 40 years old is restored to the path of growth. We will also continue to take on this challenging task and we can count on the support of the minister to enable us actualise the mandate given to us this afternoon”.
