The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Housing Authority, Professor Mohammed Al-Amin, has appealed to the National Assembly to increase the annual budgetary allocation of the agency from 5billion to N50billion in the 2019 budget.
Al-Amin, who spoke in Abuja while receiving the members of the Senate Committee on Housing and Urban Development who were on an oversight visit to the agency, said the call became imperative in order to provide jobs for a lot of Nigerians.
He disclosed that the agency was constructing a 508-housing unit at Zuba, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) at the cost of N6,260,033,044.89.
Al-Amin, however, added that a total of 256 housing units that were relocated from Kwali, another suburb of the FCT would be added to Zuba project, making it a total of 764 housing units.
He said: ‘’I want to thank the Senate Committee on Housing and Urban Development for its support to the Federal Housing Authority. However, we are asking for more so that the budgetary intervention to the agency be increased from 5billion to N50bn in the 2019 budget in order to provide more jobs for Nigerians’’.
On the Zuba housing project, Al-Amin said: “Preparation for Abuja Mass Housing project started in the second half of 2017 following the release of N5billion from the federal government.
“ All technical documentations were done and the first phase of the awards were carried out in February, 2018 through selective tendering process. Subsequent awards were through open tendering process. Total cost of development at Zuba, today, stands at N6,260,033,044,89.
“In all, a total of 508 housing units are under construction at Zuba. With the expected relocation of 256 units from Kwali site, expected total development at Zuba will come to 764 units’’.
Responding, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Housing and Urban Development, Senator Barnabas Gemade, who said the agency was abandoned in the past, expressed satisfaction with its achievements.
He, however, pledged the readiness of the committee to increase the agency’s budgetary provision and called on the management of FHA to fast track the process of drafting its amendment act.
