President Bola Tinubu has appointed Ayodeji Ariyo Gbeleyi, Federal Mortgage Bank (FMBN) chair accused of failure, as the new Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).
The State House stated that Gbeleyi is “a renowned financial expert and award-winning chartered accountant”, but he chaired the FMBN, which a member of Tinubu’s cabinet recently criticised for failure.
Ahmed Dangiwa, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, complained that the FMBN’s performance left much to be desired in January.
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“It is disheartening to know that the housing finance development agencies have been performing suboptimally,” Dangiwa told an audience in Abuja.
“If you look at FHA, for example, it is an agency that is expected to provide houses for all segments of society, including low-income, middle-income, and high-income. They have received tremendous support from the government to carry out their mandate.
“On each occasion that the Federal Capital Territory Administration opens new districts in Abuja, a large portion of land is always reserved for the authority. When they request land from the state government, they are always obliged. And for this, there is no reason why they should not be able to build houses in large numbers. They also have options to approach the capital market for housing development.
“The FMBN is expected to lead mortgage financing in the country. They should meet the needs of Nigerians for easy access to mortgages. They should also explore capital markets, but their performance leaves much to be desired. Our reforms will, therefore, be very comprehensive.’’
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Former president Muhammadu Buhari appointed Gbeleyi as FMBN’s board chairman in January 2022.
Under Gbeleyi’s leadership, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) accused the FMBN of using unnecessary bottlenecks to enable corruption.
Chris Onyeka, National Secretary-General of the NLC, told The PUNCH in 2023 that the FMBN lied about Nigerian workers accessing mortgages through the N238 billion National Housing Fund (NHF). He also said that the FMBN did not provide proper accounts of the funds to the intended beneficiaries of the NHF.
“If people are accessing it, who are they? These funds are kept somewhere, and people who access them are the privileged few; that is always the problem,” Onyeka explained.
“It is our money. It has to be accessible to us. There should be no impediment to our making use of our money.”
Gbeleyi was also Commissioner of Finance in Lagos State from 2013 to 2015 under Tinubu’s All Progressives Congress (APC).
The post Ariyo Gbeleyi, FMBN Chief Accused of Failure, Gets New Appointment From Tinubu appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.