Minister issued strong warning to developers

Nigeria’s Housing and Urban Development Minister, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, has issued a strong warning to all developers of Renewed Hope Housing Estates and Cities across the 13 locations nationwide to maintain high construction standards and deliver quality work.

According to the minister, the ministry will not tolerate any substandard work found on any Renewed Hope Project Site anywhere in the country.

Dangiwa emphasised that construction must be based on contractual terms to ensure durability, stating that he will not hesitate to revoke contract of any substandard work.

“Under the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President, we are very committed to ensuring that the houses that we build and the infrastructure is of good quality. To all the developers and contractors on our Renewed Hope Housing Projects, I want them to know that we will not tolerate poor quality work from any developer or contractor. If we identify any substandard work at any of the project sites, we will first demolish the structure and the contractor will have to rebuild as per standard or we revoke the contract entirely”, he warned.

The minister spoke when he led the ministry’s officials including the Minister of State, Rt Hon. Yusuf Abdullahi Ata, the Permanent,  Dr Shuaib Belgore and some directors of the ministry on the inspection of the ongoing construction work of the 1,500 and 500 Housing Housing Unit Renewed Hope Housing City in Kano State which are being built via Public Private Partnership and budgetary provision respectively.

“We are impressed with the pace of work at the 1,500 Housing Unit Renewed Hope City that we are building here in Kano through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) with a consortium of developers led by Continental Civil Engineering. I commend them for the speed and the workforce they have mobilised. For the 500-Housing Unit Renewed Hope City which we are funding under the 2023 Supplementary budget, the project is not moving at the pace that we expect and we want the developers to step things up so we can complete and commission”, he noted.

On the timeline, he said “ We also want the developers to adhere to the timeline and finish within two to three months

Accordingly,  he stated that the ministry of housing and urban development under the Renewed Hope Agenda of His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu, is very particular about giving Nigerians value for money, hence the government will not compromise on standard.

He also explained the economic impact of housing constructions, including job creation for masons, labourers , artisans, food vendors, blocks and other building materials suplliers, saying that the value chain effect of construction work is significant and creates a positive economic impact.

“We are making serious progress in our bid to actualize the Renewed Hope Agenda of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for housing and urban development. Our plan is to build seven Renewed Hope Cities,  one in each geo- political zone and FCT. We currently ongoing construction for 2,000 units in Kano, 3,112 units in FCT and  2,000 in Lagos while other locations are scheduled to come on stream. We also have construction ongoing simultaneously at twelve (12) for Renewed Hope Estates 250 housing units each two per geo-political zone “ Dangiwa stated.

The minister also directed Federal Controllers and assigned ministry monitoring personnel to ensure close supervision of work and escalation of all quality infringements for action to be taken while also warning them not to compromise their offices.

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