The Minister of works and housing while answering some crucial questions this morning on a radio Nigeria programme, "have your say" reterated the commitment of Buahri and Osinbajo administration towards winning the menace against infrastructural deficits across the federation.

Below are the questions and answers filed.

QUESTION: Considering the challenges poised by the covid19 and the priority placed on infrastructural development by Buhari administration, what is the level of progress so far in the housing development?


Hon Minister: Perhaps the place to start is to all ask ourselves why do nation rich and poor continue to invest in one form of infrastructure or the other or why is infrastructure so defining for the development of the nation. Infrastructure is the easiest way to legitimately distribute money round the common wealth of any nation. Once a nation commit to infrastrural development such as rail, road, and airport construction impact reach the ground in a manner of speaking from where you begin to buy literate, sand, stones, it reaches the interland where the quarry are kept; every truck of laterite cost between N6,000-N10,000 for the land owner. Every time a truck enter the land, and then the value chain from loader tpo driver to delivery and then the construction site;labour, engineer, disel supply to actually the build of the infrastructure which makes the nation more competitive and more efficient because travelling is easy, movement of goods is easy and business is easy to do, so with that context, where we were in the world bank global rating of ease of doing of business; we were rank 170, Nigeria has moved 39 places, we are currently in 131 and therefore, we are making progress and heading in the right direction and the economy is responding to the diagnostic designed by the Buhari administration.


QUESTION: Many Nigerians decide to benefit from the housing loans, i.e civil servants inclusive, what the ministry is doing to make this happen in view of the role of the federal mortgage bank?

HON Minister: the federal Mortgage Bank is a parastatal supervise by the ministry of works and housing, as a parastatal, it has it laws that govern it, it is also subject to regulatory control of the CBN, what the ministry do is to bring policy framework for ensuring that the monies that they get through the monthly contributions to the national housing funds are judiciously utilized in finance development of housing. From the last report presented to council about the performance of the bank, there have issued about 5,225 mortgages in the last five years which total a sum of N38 billion that has been disbursed. The fund of the bank comes largely from monthly contributions. This is in a region of about 2-3 billion contribution in a month. The bank grant the contributors home refurbishment loan which helps beneficiaries to do many things which include paying of rents and 22,000 people have benefited in the last five years. Apart from that, the federal mortgage bank is also financing the construction and development of about 5000 houses i different part of the country and this include the estate development loan in which the contributories sometimes identify a developer who has a design or structure they want to buy so what they do is approach the bank and the bank will finance for them and issue the contributory loan to the contributory to buy from the developer who recovers is money.

QUESTION: On alternative cheaper building material for housing, is the country looking at the possibility of adopting some of these methods to tackle some of these challenges e.g cheaper cost?

HON minister: Before we talk about the alternative cheaper cost of building materials, we cannot tell the full picture of Nigeria housing challenges if all we focus on is what the FMB and FG are doing because they are only a part of the entire picture. The FG does not control land or urban planning. The state has a role to play and also the individual private company have more defining role to play. It is only when we get the totality of this picture before we can get the full impact of the progress the country is making. Our policy and responsibility on building materials includes determining or advising on acceptable types of building materials for Nigeria’s housing environment taking into consideration the land use, the availability of material, and the climatic condition which is the reason why there is a design called the national housing programme that is responsible for diverse means of Nigeria up north the preference for bungalows, down south the preference for block of flats. There are people who use moulds, bricks, containers, precast concrete, and polystyrene, the government is interfacing in all of these. The government is encouraging everybody but cannot legislate individual the type of material to be used. Government can regulate and prescribe what is the acceptable building code and building type to be adopted.

QUESTION: Building collapse, over the years we have had building collapse across the states, is there any way the ministry is looking at reducing this?

HON minister: Building collapse is a mater which the ministry is interest but is also a matter of law enforcement because, there is a building code about what quantities and parameters and material to be used to construct a building. The Supreme Court has decided in a case initiated by the Lagos state government that urban development and building control is a municipal mater for each state. If you are permitted to build two building storey and went ahead to build four storey, the tendency is that the building will collapse. If there is no compliance, the agency in charge will look for the builder, workforce to know what went wrong and hand them over to the law enforcement if there is any wrong doing. Why should a building come down if the right thing has been done; clearly somebody has done a wrong thing.

QUESTION: Some of the houses completed by the FG in some states, what is the cause of delay concerning allocation?

HON minister: There are couple of things causing the delay, most of the houses have been completed but there are a few things to be done in some places ranging from electrical connection to internal road network to replacing some materials etc. There is pressure from some of the people who want to buy, We are working out on allocation scheme where we open online portal for people to apply and make reserve allocation for state government who gave the land for free to enable them decide on their own allocation. A cases where we have a few of dozen, we give them a certain percentage. Unfortunately, the procurement process at the Federal level is very cumbersome but we have to go through the process to get it right.

QUESTION: Roads are the economic bloodlines of any nation, indeed there are challenges in terms of road, many Nigerians are saying that the condition of some of the major roads are still not completed or undergoing construction which seem to be lasting too long, How so would the work be completed?

HON minister: If there are no challenges, perhaps, we would not need the government; challenge is a continue experience of nation building and development. Recently, there was a press conference relating to the partial closure of the third midland bridge, even at the time of the oil boom in the 70s, the construction of the bridge stands three decades before completion. The Abuja Lokoja road is almost 300KM being expanded from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. When we factor the limiting consideration because if we are to build it linearly which is now expanded into four lanes, we are talking about 1,200KM of road; the limiting factor which is among the inheriting by this administration were left undone at the time oil is sold at $34 per barrel. But it is the administration that is committed to doing it; what we are doing on many roads in every case is rebuilding which require to dig the soil out and remove the laterite and sometimes we dig as 1m depth; imagine replacing for three lanes which cover 300KM. It is a continuous process which is why our roads are completed in sections; some section of the Abuja to lokoja road has been completed but last section which is the section of Koton-Karfi - Lokoja we are trying to finish, the same thing goes to Lagos –Ibadan (some sections have been compelted), Kano-Maiduguri which is about 560KM, last section of it is covering 140km have been finished, Lokoja to Benin road( Benin section have been completed), Epoma to Lokoja, a lot of progress has been made even though we encountered a great challenge. In the last three months, we have not been able to do any work because of covi19 and we just got approval for the SUKUK so that on Monday we can start disbursing funds for the contractors. We plan to finish about 22 major roads between 2020 and 2021. The truth of the matter is, as we construct, people are enjoying the journey time compared to then when people sleep on the road because unpleasant roads; journey that suppose to take a day now takes two days; this has largely reduced and stopped such as Benin-ore-shagamu, Lagos-Ibadan, Enugu-PH.

ENGAGEMENTS BY THE PEOPLE

*my suggestion to the minister is to have estates across all the LGAs of the federation.

* There is need for the government to look into the housing issue; If FG can talk to the state government to provide adequate land for them to build because there are many displace people in this country who need houses.

* Some of the FG roads in the south-eastern region are in bad states, we urge you to use your good office and fast track their repairs and the second Niger Bridge. What can an ordinary citizen can do to acquire land in the federal housing scheme?

*I appeal to the minister and i know you are trying your best; in Edo State, we have suffered so much bad road especially in Akoko-edo and the road is a federal road (Ibiro to aiyegule).

*What is the government doing concerning civil servant in building houses while still in service?

*why is our roads don’t last long and we are spending more money on them?

*If the Second Niger Bridge is completed by 2022, Nigerians would be happy because that bridge is always politicised.

* I want to know more about the construction of 300,000 housing units captured in the ESP and how your ministry is going to achieve this?

*The administration’s commitment toward infrastructural development across board is commendable.

*The ESP is designed, when is the 30,000 housing units implementation going to kick-start?



REPLIES TO SOME QUESTIONS BY THE MINISTER

*The housing at local level, the housing picture of Nigeria is not only captured by the FG alone but the authority of the housing especially the land, it is absolutely under the state government. People should lias with their state government, if lands are provided, there would be investment from the FG to create ease of doing business and enabling environment.
*The roles by the private investor are always encouraged to build houses. There is a programme in which houses are provided to the civil servants. In terms of some of the roads that have been mentioned, the second Niger Bridge, it is plan to be completed in 2022 and even with the covid19, the date will not change.
*We have awarded the Awochukwu road and we are waiting for funding. We are refunding states that build Federal roads. People should know that FG owns 35% of the road in the federation while the States and LGAs owned the rest of the 65% of the roads and the Federal roads are plies the more. We will call the attention of FERMA to carry out their remediation and repair in some of the roads.
*The Mile2 Bafdary is undertaking by the FG and the Lagos State government; the FG is undertaking the part from Seme border to Okokomaiko and the major work is ongoing, we are yet to pay the contractor but with the sukuk fund by Monday, we will disburse funds. Clearly, the road cannot be compared to how it was five years ago.
*Some roads last longer than others; If roads are built in river areas, the road materials do not go along with too much water. People changing oil on the road and pouring the oil on the road are damaging the road; washing of cars by the roadside have effect on the roads.
*We are implementing the final plan of the ESP, we are working together with the state government on that too.
We don’t have all of the resources; in spite of the limited resources available, the Buhari administration is winning the war of infrastructural deficits in the country.

love

As a frequent road user from the North to the West I can attest to the Ministers claim that the roads are a lot more pleasurable to traverse these days than a couple of years ago.

This administration really mean business in transforming the country to a better one.

fashola is working....

I have an engineering firm Mr Fashola, please give us one of these projects to handle for you sir.

Thank you and God bless

This government is really trying

The infrastructural development this administration has embarked on and completed is highly commendable.

Scammers

Fashola told us about lekki airport and it will be completed next year.. that was 2013

Lekki free zone.. completed next year .... same 2013

A lot fashola said that year...

Today all na audio...

Aregbe say osun international airport... all to be ready next year... that project na audio

All project handled by past Yoruba governors are all audio
........ and Yoruba will always shout Fashola is working

2020 Fashola don land with his “ next year” audio release..

And Yoruba people as usual “ Fashola is working “
Yoruba can hype for Africa... walahi.