Fashola receives reports on Gombe, Taraba housing projects, assures Nigerians

The Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing has beefed up efforts to complete its National Housing Programmes in Gombe and Taraba States respectively.

This was made known last week when the Minister in charge of the ministry, Mr Babatunde Fashola visited the state, where the Federal Controller of Housing, Mr Pius Eneji conducted him round the site.

Briefing the minister, Eneji disclosed that the site was on 16 hectares of land, adding that the contractors were currently working on five hectares of the land.

The Controller also added that there were a total of 76 units of houses in the site, made up of four units of one bedroom semi-detached bungalows, 48 units of two bedroom semi-detached bungalows and 15 units of three bedroom semi-detached bungalows.

According to him, “work on the site was delayed for some time as a result of certain exigencies. A total of 19 contractors were on the site working but for the delay, some of the houses would have gone beyond the levels that they are at the moment,” he said.

He also added that the number of workers that were engaged on a daily basis varies according to the volume and that when the building got to the stage of casting lintel, more workers would be required as well as at other stages of work as the buildings progress.

It could be observed at both the Gombe and Taraba sites that the buildings were at various stages of completion with some at the foundation level while others are already progressing towards the lintel level.

During the inspection to Jalingo-Kona-Lam-Karim-Lamido road, the minister expressed his pleasure to the Taraba State Government for taking responsibility for the road and the contractor handling the project, for the quality of work done, including the Taraba State Commissioner for Works and Transport, Dr Tafarki Eneme, for what the minister described as “effective supervision of the project to completion.”

The minister, who assured that the Federal Government would reimburse the state the money they spent on the road, however, pointed out that the road was now a metropolitan municipal road as it ran inside the centre of the city adding that it no longer qualified as a federal road.

According to the minister, “This is now a metropolitan municipal road. It really does not qualify in the sense of a federal highway because our work as a Federal Government is to connect states together. But obviously when this road was designated as a federal highway most of these developments were not here; but you now see that it now has a pedestrian sidewalk and all of the amenities.

“So it has become a municipal road and if you apply, I think the Federal Government will be inclined to hand it over to you for maintenance and management,” he said, assuring the state government, however, that the handover or any such arrangement in the future was without prejudice to its right to be fully reimbursed whatever it had spent on the road.

Similarly, the minister also visited the National Housing Programme in Gombe State during which he reiterated that President Buhari was determined to make Housing and Infrastructure development generally the main plank of his administration’s Economic Recovery Plan.

The Federal Controller of Housing in the State, Yalin Luka Barnabas, a town planner, who conducted the Minister round the housing project, told him that there were altogether 76 housing units made up of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom semi-detached bungalows adding that there were altogether about 500 workers on daily basis.

Fashola, who spoke in Taraba hinted that National Housing Programme is currently going on in 33 states of the country, emphasising that the whole idea behind the road and Housing development projects going on now across the country was to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youth, get those who had lost their jobs back to work and, thereby, energize the economy.

Addressing the workers, Fashola pointed out that the objective of the Federal Government was to get the youths back to work adding that the programme would energize the economy as artisans, carpenters, bricklayers, welders, food vendors, suppliers and many others engage in activities that put money in their pockets and food on their tables.

“That is why President Muhammadu Buhari said this year’s budget is a budget of growth, getting people who have lost their jobs previously back to work, putting money in their pockets and restoring their dignity so that every morning they can tell their wives, they can tell their husbands ‘I am going to work,” he said.