By Henry Umoru
ABUJA- THE Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA has called for adequate funding for the 5, 000 Wasa Affordable Housing Site located in the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).
The Minister of State for FCTA, Dr Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu who made the call yesterday in Abuja while leading the Senate Committee on FCT on an assessment tour of some sites in the territory, said that there was the issue of lack of funding or inadequate funding for the 5, 000 Wasa Affordable Housing Site.
The Minister who noted that the project had been reviewed and has been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, said, “If there is no issue of aggressive and critical funding to this project, we will come back to a review situation.
“With the economic situation of this country; with the accelerated prices of goods in the market which causes the incessant increase in what we buy and the prices of labour, we will need to sit.
“We need to look into areas of collaboration with the Senate to ensure that there is adequate funding for this critical project to ensure the takeoff of the affordable housing to give succour to residents.
“As long as we keep reviewing, the prices will not be affordable.”
While commending Gilmor Engineering (Nigeria) Limited, Aliyu who noted that the company had been able to tackle the issue of insecurity at the site with the construction of a police station, said, “”So it is a critical need. As it is today, security had been part of the challenges on the site and so decisions were taken to engage on citizens-stakeholders engagements, local security and settlings.
“This also ameliorated the situation of security but not without the support of the police of the FCT.”
She, however said that more needed to be done to ensure that there was security to lives and property.
In his remarks, Chairman Senate Committee on FCT, Senator Smart Adeyemi, APC, Kogi West who noted that the essence of “our coming is to be able to look at projects as we work the budget, said, “I’m particularly impressed with the presentation made by the minister of state and the engineer.
“Democracy is all about good governance. And when you talk about good governance you talk about the protection and improvement of lives of people and property.
“This is one project that I’m particularly delighted and I want to commend the minister for allowing this project to continue in spite of the long years that we have been waiting for its completion.
“We will be able to look at the budget. We are going to look at how we can assist this project more than what was provided.
“We are all in the struggle of the improvement of the wellbeing of the people. So we will do all we can. This is a good project. We have looked at the provision.
“I can assure you that we will look at how we can improve what is provided because to me, whatever concerns the masses of this country, I’m always delighted to be a part of it. Because we are still part of the masses. We will do all we can to assist you to assist the minister of state to see how this project can receive the boost that is required.”
On his part, the Site Engineer, Ibrahim Kangiwa said that the projects commenced with a lot of progress has been achieved.
