This is the first administration that has made plans for young people – Okonjo-Iweala

The Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said that 33 Nigerians benefited from the Federal Government’s housing programme under the mortgage refinancing scheme.

Okonko-Iweala, who said this while presenting a speech at the Caritas Nigeria Forum on Tuesday in Abuja, said 9,667 people had also been cleared as eligible to benefit from the scheme.

“ Sixty-six thousand people applied for the scheme; as at date, 23,000 have been pre-qualified and 9,700 have been cleared as being eligible to get it.

“ And 33 people have actually had money being disbursed to them to own a home.

“ This will continue to pick up and young people like you in the audience will own a home and each house built creates jobs.

“So not only are we trying to attack this issue of housing but we are also creating jobs for Nigerians,’’ she said.

According to her, “this is the first administration that has made plans for young people to dream of owning their own homes even before they retire from service.

She said that before, Nigeria was doing about 20,000 to 50,000 mortgages a year “and for a country with our kind of size, it was not good enough”.

“ As we speak, we are trying to work with labour that has a big housing scheme ongoing, the NLC and TUC, to see how we can work with them to be able to afford houses.

“ And then Rent-to-Own is another mechanism by the government to help people own their own houses.

“ We are trying to work out down the line, so that if you cannot put a down payment, you can after years of renting, be able to own your own home.