Saraha: The people’s developer

By Abdulmajeed Musa

If there is anybody in Nigeria who cares for the development of the people not only in his constituency but the country at large, it is Alhaji Kabiru Saraha. As an estate developer, Sahara has invested massively in affordable housing to support the country’s housing need. He sees housing as a veritable tool of bringing the nation’s development needs and always emphasizes that the people’s development cannot be completed without the provision of housing. Sahara’s goal is to improve quality of life by using urban informatics and housing technology to boost efficiency and meet the people’s needs. He manages an indigenous firm, Sahara Homes, which helps in the provision of houses with multiplier effect to grow the economy astronomically and ensure that the country conforms to the clamour for environmental protection and national development.

Kabiru Saraha sees the provision of housing as an engine of growth. This is why experts and other stakeholders in the real estate industry are clamouring for more investments in the industry. For him, this is a viable option also to drive the economy out of the present recession. This is because of its potentials to attract new entrepreneurs, promote job creation and make artisans and masons huge contributors to the economy. He has built 24 housing estates in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. These estates have unique features including basic infrastructure to give a decent quality of life, clean and serene environment through application of some smart solutions.

It is an urban development vision which integrates multi information and communication technology (ICT) solutions in a secure fashion to manage the estates’ assets. Others are assured water and electricity supply, sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility and public transport, robust ICT connectivity, e-governance, and citizen participation, safety and security. Also in the estates are public information, grievances redressed system (police station), electronic service delivery, waste disposal system, 100 percent treatment of waste water, smart meters and management, monitoring water quality, renewal source of energy, smart parking, and intelligence traffic management system.

Sahara develops his estates towards improving the management of urban flows and allowing for real time response to challenges. Evidently, Kabiru Saraha has all through braced up to the provision of developmental projects that will translate to the people’s personal development. He has also built estates in Zamfara, Jigawa, Kebbi and a state in the South-south as a deliberate policy of the provision of quality housing that can translate to the development of the masses. He acknowledges the present economic challenges in Nigeria but sees it as an opportunity to invest in the people through qualitative estate development.

He observes that development planning which is a lesson he brought to politics from his experience in estate development involves processes which ensure that state or national policies and strategies are realized and development concerns at all levels are fully integrated into the overall national and state development goals. To him “it is designed to effect some permanent structural changes in the social, economic and infrastructural architecture of the nation in a planned manner with an eye on the dynamic global challenges. The government should set out objectives about the way it wants the economy to develop in the future and periodically intervene to try to achieve those objectives”. He also is of the view that weak communications and co-ordination around the national budget has created certain assumptions on the execution of the fiscal action plans.

Major public resource allocation process, reflecting a minor image of the state in terms of social values and priorities has not translated rhetoric into reality with a glance at the budget from the surface.
Saraha says the need for a national development plan finds urgent justification in the reality that the one year period of annual national budget is practically inadequate to reflect government policies and reform agenda as critical area such as infrastructure most often requires more than a year to establish, expand, reform or revive. It equally requires longer time to bring budget deficit to an acceptable level of stability.

The growing significance and relevance of prudent fiscal management for the success of every strategic development plan must be appreciated by planners and managers of the country’s economy. He sees the linkage between the executive and legislature to learn the art of effective communication as imperative. He sought the development of a time table to set expectations and determine a process which the executive must communicate. He seeks the development of a budget toolkit for the legislature.
The package should contain a rolling forecast updated with actuals, recurrent details for headcount planning, the defined goals with specifics related to each department, a digital worksheet to aid both the development of budget and any upload or consolidation process, and a financial calendar which includes deadlines and responsibilities.

To him, citizens buy in should rank top of the ladder both in the planning process and during the year, with monitoring and evaluation of actual budget performances. Government at all level must not sacrifice the people’s purpose of the budgeting exercise for mundane wrangling. There should be strengthened legal, governance and administrative policies and procedure in place to create a more robust platform to interact and engage with citizens as a way of promoting inclusiveness in the budgeting system of the nation.

As an estate developer and a developer of the people, Kabiru Saraha believes that governments must provide platforms and take steps to further strengthen institutions to serve the people better. He acknowledges that this process will be catalytic to strategizing towards strengthening participation in the policy thrust that will underpin the budgetary activities and plan of governments. He also urges engagement with professionals to ensure a better society with the benefits of improved public finance management, a lesson he learnt in the estate management and development industry

Musa wrote from Abuja

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