Fashola counts achievements, challenges of ministry at three

Babatunde Raji Fashola, Nigeria’s minister for power, works and housing has said his ministry has delivered on some its promises but there are still some challenges to deal with as it marks its third anniversary.

In the third year progress report, dated Nov. 12, the 55-year-old senior advocate of Nigeria stated that the ministry has walked its talk and outlined some achievements under his leadership.

“With regard to power, we have improved on what we met, by increasing generation from 4000 MW to 7000 MW, transmission from 5000 MW to 7000 MW and distribution from 2690 MW to 5,222 MW” Fashola said.

These figures have been challenged by some power industry players. When in July, Fashola presented these numbers, Sunday Oduntan, executive director research and advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) emphasised the figures were incorrect.

ANED, which is the umbrella body of electricity distribution companies (DisCos), said generation capacity as at January 2015 was 6,421 megawatts (MW) and not 4,000MW.

In a recent phone interview with TheCable, Joy Ogaji, executive secretary of Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) said generation  companies have an installed capacity 13, 000MW; 7,500 is available while the actual capacity that gets to Nigerian homes is 3,968MW.

However, Fashola counts on another source, customer experience to validate his claims as reflected in the third year progress report.

“As some citizens recently reported they no longer have to iron all their clothes one week in advance as the previously used to do, because the supply is proving reliable and predictable even if not yet fully stable and uninterrupted” Fashola said.

The minister enumerated some projects, meant to shore-up generation which included generation from Kaduna, 215MW; Afam IV 240MW; Kashimbilla 40MW; Gurara 30MW; Dandinkowa 29MW; power for nine universities, 15 markets and two big Hyro power plants of 700MW in Zungeru and 3,050MW in Mambilla.

For transmission Fashola said there are 90 projects nationwide with Apo, Mayo Belwa, Damaturu, Maiduguri, Odogunyan and Ejigbo being recently completed.

“Although there are still people we have not reached, although there are still disruptions from time to time, and although there are still people who also need meters, and we are working to reach them, it is indisputable that we have delivered on incremental power” Fashola said in the third year progress report.

On housing, the former two-term governor of Lagos State counted public buildings such as Federal Secretariats in Zamfara, Bayelsa, Nasarawa and Ekiti where public works are being undertaken, and the Zik Mausoleum in Onitsha which he said is now practically completed.

“Let me also point out that our pilot National Housing Programme has led to a nationwide Housing Construction being undertaken in the 34 states where we have received land” he said.

The minister claimed that no less than 1,000 people are employed on each site apart from the staff of the successful contractors. He added that these sites are an ecosystem of human enterprise, where artisans, vendors, suppliers and craftsmen converge to partake of opportunities and contribute to nation building.

“Our parastatals like the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) are also contributing.”

Policies such as the reduction of equity contribution from 5 percent to 0 percent for those seeking mortgage loans of up to N5million, and reduction from 15 percent to 10 percent for those seeking loans over N5million are helping to ease access to housing.

According the report, the ministry is also tackling the backlog of issuance of consent and Certificates of Occupany to Federal Government land.

A total of 1,216 Application for Consent to transfer interests in Land application and 1,300 Certificates of occupancy have been approved and signed respectively as at 25th October 2018.

Some of these transactions started over a decade ago and those just getting certificates acquired their properties years back but never got title.

“You will go a long way back in our history to find out when a Federal Government set out such clear objectives and is able to come back to show its progress report” Fashola said.