The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) says the Integrated Personal Payroll Information System (IPPIS) failed to remit N26.6 billion of workers’ contributory funds in two years.
Managing Director of FMBN, Madu Hamman, announced this while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad hoc committee probing non-remittance to the National Housing Fund (NHF) and utilisation on Thursday in Abuja.
Hamman said from October to December 2022, IPPIS did not remit N11.630 billion to FMBN.
According to him, there is a backlog of N11,587 billion not remitted from January to December 2022 for MDAs. He added that IPPIS also failed to remit N3.356 billion from April to July 2021.
Hamman explained that IPPIS wrongly made some payments as housing contributions to the Federal Government Loan and Scholarships Board. “These wrong payments affected 14 MDAs.”
According to the FMBN boss, all contributors are eligible for full refund of their contribution over the years. Such refund should include accrued interest of two per cent upon retirement.
Others, he said, were by attainment of 60 years or inability to continue due to incapacitation or death. FMBN, he said, has so far refunded N66.678 billion to 444,637 beneficiaries.
Speaking on projects executed by FMBN, Hamman said the bank ensured it gave loans to registered members of the association of developers.
He said FMBN has also disbursed N139.6 billion to 24,332 individual beneficiaries through the regular primary mortgage banks.
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On the ministerial pilot scheme, Mamman said the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing provided land for those on the scheme. FMBN it had spent N38 billion to build 5,443 units of houses.
Reacting to allegations of non-remitance, Mr Ekwem Dem, Deputy Director, IPPIS in the Office of the Accountant General said IPPIS was just hearing the allegation for the first time.
“On our own part, we are just hearing some of these allegations,” Dem said.
For instance, he said, the remittances of ASUU members were still hanging due to the ‘no work no pay’ policy.
He added that there was a need for a reconciliation window, “so we can see the area of convergence”.
Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Dachung Bagos, said the committee would go on an oversight visit to some of the projects, which FMBN claimed to be executing.
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“We will do random checks to see the utilisation of this work, we are going to oversight all these projects.
“We need to know why the Nigerian civil servants are not given what is due to them,” the chairman said.
Recall that on Wednesday, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) threatened to pull out civil servants from the NHF contributory funds over the non-remittance of deductions made.
President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, made the threat while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee.
According to Ajaero, FBN had refused to send alerts of how much civil servants have contributed, including their monthly deductions.
He urged the lawmakers to take drastic steps to remove encumbrances to affordable and quality housing for millions of Nigerians.
This is especially, in the interest of workers who make the most contributions to the NHF.
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