Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the sum of N515 million for the completion of an earth dam in Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, told State House Correspondents at the end of the meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said: “The Federal Ministry of Water Resources presents one memo for the revised estimated total cost for the construction of Duguba Earth-Dam in Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
“In line with our tradition of trying to complete projects that we inherited, we revised this project which is under the supervision of Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority, initiated in 2011 but stalled due to lack of adequate budgetary provision and to some extent the insurgency in the area it was abandoned for some time.
“Now it has been revived and we are looking forward to its completion in the next 18 months, having got a revision of the project by about N515 million form the original contract sum of N753 million to a total of N1.26 million now.”
The minister said although the contract was abandoned over the years but the current administration is poised to complete it, to boost water supply for residents of the area.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Works and Housing has said it is constructing 1,868 housing units, under the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), for use by Nigerians in need of houses.
Minister of State Works and Housing, Abubakar Aliyu, made the disclosure at the briefing.
According to him, some of the houses have already being completed while others are at various stages of completion.
The minister said the revelation was part of the ministry’s scorecard from August 2015 to December, 2019.
“The Federal Housing Authority has a total of 1868 housing units under construction between August 2015 and December 2019 and out of these, a total of 461 housing units have so far been delivered in six states including the Federal Capital Territory FCT, Benue, Bayelsa, Cross River and Anambra States,” he said.
According to him, the construction of the houses has so far created over 39, 000 jobs for Nigerians.
He said: “In the course of providing these houses and the construction process associated with it, jobs in the construction value chain translating into 39, 100 employments were created for Nigerians.”
The Minister said the completed houses are already being sold to interested Nigerians, who can apply for purchase through the FHA platform.