Members of the National Assembly Joint Committee on Lands, Housing and Urban Development (Senate & House of Reps) have commended the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola,SAN for effectively utilising the 2019 budget on projects that were beneficial to the citizens.
This commendation was given when the Minister appeared before the Joint Committee to defend the Ministry’s 2020 budget, Wednesday, October 23, 2019.
While appraising the performance of the 2019 budget of his ministry, Fashola listed some special projects executed by his ministry in rural communities across the country in 2019 which include:construction of classrooms, boreholes, medical health care centres in rural areas and construction of drainage to slum communities.
He pointed out that most of the projects were requested by the parliamentarians for the rural dwellers within their various constituencies.
On the remarkable success of Issuance of Certificates of Occupancy and Letters of Consent to respective applicants by the ministry,, a member of the committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya from Kano State, noted that the letters of consent issued to the people enhanced the economic performance and development of his people because having the papers indicating their ownership of the land gave them the authority to do whatever they wanted with the land.
The Minister, went ahead to disclose to the joint committee that the 2020 budget proposal of the ministry gave priority to some specific housing projects already embarked upon by the ministry.
The projects according to him, include: the completion of the ongoing construction of 1155 blocks of the 2383 units of houses under the National Housing Programme (NHP) in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory,completion of on going construction of Federal Secretariats in six states; Anambra, Bayelsa, Gombe , Nassarawa, Osun and Zamfara, installation of solar panels as alternative source of energy at the ministry’s headquarters,Abuja.
Others according to the minister are: fulfilment of Nigeria’s financial obligations to Shelter Afrique for the construction of affordable housing of which Nigeria is a key player.
Fashola also mentioned in the priority list: the provision of infrastructure by building access roads, drainages for erosion control for social housing schemes in Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Enugu, Kwara and Osun States, and settlement of liabilities incurred under the Special Projects Unit, which caters for project under the Millennium Development Goals MDAs and Sustainable Development Goals .
The Minister,however, faulted the practice of measuring budget performance by funds expended on projects but not on the actual work done. He explained that most times the projects were carried out on priority bases, therefore the fund made available might not be enough to carry out all the projects needed by Nigerians.
Mr. Fashola charged members of the joint committee to encourage members of their constituencies to form cooperative groups through which land could be acquired from states to access credit and build genuine houses of choice.
He further revealed that that the ministry was planning to launch the cooperative system for ease of accessing land and credit for providing affordable houses for Nigerians.
While applauding the Minister for the judicious use of fund for the housing sector in the 2019 budget the Chairman of the Joint Committee, Dr.Sam Egwu admonished the the Honourable and his team to ensure that the implementation of the year 2020 budget was better than that of 2019.
Members of the joint committee also advocated that more funds should be given to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to enable it achieve it goals.
