The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, Wednesday, informed the Senate, that the cumulative outstanding liability of the housing sector of the Ministry in 16 years which is from 2001 to 2017, stands at N78, 161, 975, 779.02.
He also lamented to the Senate that major factor affecting the Housing Sector of the Ministry and overall issues of timely completion of projects on schedule or ahead of schedule was insufficient budgetary provision to sustain annual cash flow requirements to meet desired targets as stipulated in the planning stages of all projects.
Fashola who made these lamentations during the 2020 Budget Defence of his Ministry before the Senator Samuel Egwu led Senate Committee on Housing, said the sum of N19, 821,259,693.93 was released to the Housing Sector as first allocation for the completion of the National Housing Programmes, Completion of ongoing and Maintenance of Federal Secretariats, SDGs/Direct Mandate Projects, and other general improvement of infrastructures in 2019.
According to him, this represents 23.7% of the sum of N83, 761,180,646.00 total Capital Allocation in the 2019 Appropriation Act, adding, “This leaves a balance of N63, 939,920,952.07.”
On 2020 budget for the Housing Sector, the Minister who gave the breakdown Breakdown, said that the total allocation of Capital Projects N60, 877,799,984.00; Overhead Cost Proposal isx N118, 881,182.99 while Personnel cost proposal for the Housing Sector is N4, 418,829,837.00.
On revenue generation for 2019, Fashola said that sum of N1,559,341,688.16 was generated as lnternally Generated Revenue (IGR) from January to September, 2019 and was remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Account, adding, “The sources of the lGR are Survey Fees, Registration Fees and Title Processing Fees, amongst others. Accordingly, the sum of N6, 659,299,647.78 (Six billion, six hundred and fifty nine milIiOn, two hundred and ninety nine thousand, six hundred and forty seven naira, seventy eight kobo) only was generated as Withholding Tax (WHT) and Value Added Tax (VAT), these are direct deduction from the contract sums and paid to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as detailed below: Withholding Tax: N3,329,654,323.89; Value Added Tax N 3,329,654,323.89 and total N6,659,308,647.78.”
During question and answer session, Fashola said that if cases of building collapse must be addressed, there was the urgent need for culprits in the entire building sector to be prosecuted, adding that those who drew, supervised and participated in the building like the Architect, the builder, the Engineer, among others must be prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others.
He added that there was also the need for states to fully Domesticate the Housing Code to achieve uniformity of processes and punishment.
