The Federal Government has repositioned the Staff Housing Loans Board in order to make it more effective and achieve its mandate of assisting civil servants to own houses. The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye, said this when members of the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board paid a courtesy visit to his office in Abuja.

Mr. Oronsaye said that with this repositioning, the Board has been empowered to function in line with statutory provisions and the designation of the Chief Operating Officer of the Board has been changed from that of Director to Executive Secretary. 

The Head of Service said further that the seriousness with which the current administration holds the issue of staff housing was adequately demonstrated by the money released to the Federal Mortgage Bank by the Federal Government through the 2009 supplementary budget which was specifically slated for the granting of housing loans to civil servants.  He urged the Board to discuss with the Federal Mortgage Bank on the modalities for the usage of the money as specified in the budget.

In an initial remark, Chairman of the Federal Government Staff Housing Loans Board and Permanent Secretary (Common Services Office,) Dr. Edugie Abebe expressed the gratitude of the Board members and the entire civil service to the Head of Service, who, she said, has within a short time, reorganized the Board and made it to function more effectively. She informed the HOS that the Board has started a process that will enable her to recover lost assets and outstanding debts.