The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, has said that the Ministry of Works and Housing has been greatly improved upon during the time he spent in office.
In an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday, Fashola noted the accomplishments by the ministry of works and housing during his 8-year tenure. “We have improved upon what we met. Directly from ministerial action, we have built houses in 35 states and the FCT under the national housing program, and that has impacted Nigerians who either were employed as contractors in the building process, or were artisans, or were suppliers, and a total value chain of economic opportunities over 8 years.” He also mentioned that due to these constructed houses, President Buhari was able to give houses to the Super Eagles who were promised houses by the government in 1994. He also said that due to these constructions, there had been an increase in job opportunities in the construction industry.
Fashola also said that a lot of work was going on with the road constructions which a lot of Nigerian people did not know about, and were often quick to criticize. He said that the ministry has made 3 out of 4 roads connecting Lagos to Ogun, which had cut short the time that one would spend travelling from one state to the other. He also gave updates on the Eko Bridge, which has had some sections closed off for constructions and repairs due to a fire. “The Ijora sector is that some of the equipment that we use for these bridge repairs and bridge restorations, when they are damaged, are imported. So, just as we were making progress on the Apongbon, the Ijora section was so severely burnt that that section could collapse, so you could see that we closed it off.” He then said that although the Apongbon construction had nearly been completed, resources had to go into fixing the Ijora section, and both places were being worked on simultaneously. He then said, “The constructor, in our last month’s review, told me that he will finish Apongbon by the end of May, but that he cannot open it because the approach to Apongbon is from that Ijora section, which he hasn’t finished.”
When he was asked to speak on the legacy he will be leaving, he said, “There is a lot that has been done by this administration, and we are still hoping that we will do a few more before we go. Certainly, we can’t finish all the work, but as I told you, some of the things we are handing over is transformation about how business is done in the land sector of the housing ministry about documentation.” He also said, “One of the things we will be leaving behind in that sector is the full digitization of the federal government land registry.” He said that 53,000 files have been scanned in order to make the work digital. He said, “Whoever will be minister after me will just need a tablet and he can access the backend and give approval wherever he or she is in the world with internet access.”
When asked if he would consider serving as the minister again if offered the title by the president-elect, he replied, “I think that we should leave this matter to the president-elect to decide who he wants to work with,” saying that there were a lot of people who worked in the government without any official title.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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