Members of the Senate Committee on Land, Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday expressed shock when the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, outrightly disowned the sum of N2 billion allegedly voted for Regional Housing Scheme by the Ministry of Finance.
This was just as the Senate summoned the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, over the issue.
The total budget proposal of the Ministry in 2017 is N64.991 billion.
Fashola, who appeared before the Committee to defend the 2017 budget of the Ministry, explained the Ministry of Finance planted it into the 2017 budgetary profile of the Ministry of Housing as its own initiative, tagged: “Regional Housing Scheme.”
Angered by the development, the committee Chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade, wondered how they came about the regional housing scheme, directing the Clerk of the committee to write Adeosun to appear before it for explanation on the questionable vote.
Other votes in the N64.199 billion 2017 budgetary proposals of the Housing Ministry aside the questionable N2 billion earmarked for regional housing scheme, as presented by Fashola, are National Housing Progromme, N41.89 billion; construction, completion and rehabilitation of Federal Secretariats, N5.379 billion; Zik Mausoleum and Prototype Housing Scheme, N1.325 billion; and Projects and Programmes under PPP, N3.367 billion.
Others are Cadastral URD and Lands, N3 billion; URD/Special Projects, N2.140 billion; Payment of Outstanding Local Debts, N1.2 billion; and Constituency Outreach Intervention Projects, N1.69 billion.
However, Fashola, while defending the budget of the Ministry, pleaded with the committee to add N6 billion to the total budget estimate of the Ministry as an appropriated vote for payment of the $11.9 million Nigeria is owing Shelter Afrik, a Housing Development and Financing Organisation, which has in its membership 44 African countries.
According to the Minister, who presently chairs the governing board of the organization on the slot of Nigeria, indebted nations like Nigeria are set to be expelled from the organization by the end of this year if they refuse to pay up their dues to avoid total collapse of the development organization.
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