Fashola

HOUSING

We have not yet started constructing houses. But tenders have been considered and over 500 contracts are now ready to be issued for work to start in earnest.

However, we have received land from 27 (TWENTY-SEVEN) states as at 24th October and more are still responding.

We have completed simple designs of one, two and three-bedroom bungalows for the northern states to respond to the cultural, climatic and land use peculiarities.

We have completed simple designs of one, two and three bedroom blocks of Flats for Southern states also in response to similar peculiarities.

We have identified inputs like doors, windows, tiles, paint, roofing materials that can be made locally and we have resolved to use only made in Nigeria inputs unless there is no local production capacity.

We have done some inventory of quantities of materials needed in order to provide investment information for local manufacturers to position to respond and supply in order to create employment and get factories back to work.

These include:

A) Materials

i) 22,288 – Doors
ii) 27,849 – Windows
iii) 3,502 – Water cisterns
iv) 3,502 Wash hand basins
v) 2,830 – Kitchen Sinks
vi) 261,299 – Sq. Meters of floor tiles
vii) 178, 680 – Sq. meters of wall tiles
viii) 561,119 litres of paint
ix) 342,960 Sq. Meters of roofing material

B) Skilled Labour

413,000 Man days

C) Unskilled Labour

440,000 – Man Days

While our planning and research continues, the above is at least indicative of the kind of attention and dedication we are demanding of our staff and the response we are getting.

2017 AND BEYOND – HOUSING

Going forward in 2017, we plan to build more houses first to stimulate jobs.

Thereafter, we plan to assess the affordability and the acceptability of our designs.

Thereafter, we plan to industrialize the production of the most affordable and acceptable designs.

We will then increase supply using private sector as developers while government will then concentrate on strengthening institutions like the Federal Mortgage Bank to deliver on its core mandate of providing mortgages to working class people to own their homes.

It is my belief that if we can achieve this, the size of our housing deficit will not appear that daunting again, because it will be a system that can respond every year, instead of once in a while, to repeat housing construction, delivery and acquisition.

How much we can then deliver will be defined by the size of our resources and our ambition, and not by the absence of a workable plan.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am done. I thank you for listening.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Honourable Minister of Power, Works and Housing

11th November 2016

My view:

Please read, get more informed so that you can query government and the Ministers from the position of knowledge always.

May Nigeria succeed

BEING THE TEXT OF ADDRESS GIVEN ON THE OCCASION OF A PRESS BRIEFING BY BABATUNDE RAJI FASHOLA, SAN TO REPORT ACTIVITIES IN THE MINISTRY OF POWER, WORKS AND HOUSING ONE YEAR AFTER ASSUMPTION OF OFFICE