Babatunde Fashola, minister of works and housing, says the
President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has awarded 800 road contracts
since it came on board six years ago.
Fashola spoke on Thursday at the weekly ministerial press
briefing organised by the presidential communication team at the presidential
villa, Abuja.
He said the work done consists of highways bridges, covering
a distance of over 13, 000 kilometers.
“The number of contracts awarded is 800, not 800 projects.
Sometimes within a road you might have multiple contracts. For instance Kano to
Maiduguri there are five different contracts that are unique,” he said.
“If you look at the Lagos Ibadan, there are two contracts
there, for Enugu- Port Harcourt there are five contracts there. So each one has
a designated supervising project officer, so in that sense it is right to say
we have 800 plus contracts.”
Fashola also refuted claims that Nigeria has a housing
deficit of 17m units, noting that a country with many empty houses cannot be
classified as such.
According to him, the pressure on housing in the country was
caused by rural-urban migration, which he said created a supply problem.
He emphasised that even though people leave their houses in
the rural areas to squat in the cities, it does not amount to housing deficit
in the country.
“It’s illogical to say we have housing deficit when you have
empty houses. No such deficit exist anywhere in the world,” Fashola added.
“We are not in a housing crisis. Housing shortages that
exist are in urban centers not in rural areas. The problem is as a result of
urbanisation where people move from rural to urban centers.”
Fashola said he had consulted the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS), international organisations such as the World Bank and the
African Development Bank (AfDB), and confirmed that the Nigerian housing
deficit reports are not correct.
He advised citizens to disregard such reports.
The minister said the actual housing deficit in Nigeria
cannot be ascertained until another census is conducted in the country.
Explaining the difficulty in completing the East/West road,
Fashola explained that though about 70 percent of the road was completed, it
was under the purview of the Niger Delta ministry.
He also attributed the bad state of the Itu/Odukpani/Calabar
road to the difficult terrain, stressing that cost of building roads in the
area was high.
Also speaking on infrastructural development, he said the
present administration has taken bold steps to execute projects that seemed
impossible for previous governments, citing the Second Niger Bridge,
Lagos-Oworonshoki road, Third Mainland Bridge repairs, Kano-Abuja road among
others.
He said the ministry most times suffers a budget deficit as
the money due to the ministry to meet its contractual obligations is not fully
released.
Fashola added that budget deficit remained a challenge despite
the current administration’s achievement in infrastructure development.
“The budget for roads in Nigeria in 2015 that we inherited
was N18 billion for all Nigerian roads. 2015 was also the year that I left
office as Governor of Lagos so the budget for Lagos State roads for that year
was about N70 billion and it was not enough so I don’t see how 18 would have
been enough for the whole of Nigeria.
“But the first roads
budget for the Buhari administration was N260 billion the next, N240 billion,
next N356 billion then we have come down to N233, N237 and so on and so forth.
We are doing a lot more with less resources.”
He said six new federal secretariats arising from the
creation of new states where assets were separated are currently being
constructed.
“The ones in Anambra and Zamfara are the likely to finish
this year. The one in Nasarawa and Bayelsa will run into probably next year
while Ekiti is in the race to finish next year.”
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