The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, has revealed that his ministry will get about N400bn in the 2023 supplementary budget.
Similarly, the Ministries of Agriculture, Housing and the Federal Capital Territory will get N100bn each from the budget.Umahi; the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike; Minister of Housing, Ahmed Dangiwa; Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Kyari; Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle and other Service Chiefs on Wednesday, appeared before the Senate committee on appropriations to justify the N2.1tn 2023 supplementary budget.The ministers justified the supplementary budget on Tuesday, before the Senate Committee on Appropriations under the chairmanship of Adeola Olamilekan representing Ogun West.
Speaking before the committee, Dangiwa defended the N100 billion budgeted for the Ministry of Housing in the supplementary budget, saying the budget “will be spent on the construction of housing estates across the country.”
He explained that the Federal Government would construct 1,000 housing units in each state of the federation, adding that all state governors had been contacted to provide 50 hectares of land for the construction of the estates.
He said another 2,000 housing units “will be built in the urban areas in each geo-political zone. We will use N50 billion to kickstart the construction of the housing estates in the federation. The remaining N50 billion will be used to develop slums in different parts of the country,” he explained further.
In his presentation, Wike defended the N100bn provided in the supplementary budget for the Federal Capital Territory.
Out of the N100bn, the minister noted that N22bn was earmarked for completion of metro rail.
Speaking on insecurity, Wike noted that since he assumed office three months ago, there had been improvement in the security situation.
He vowed before the committee to pull down all abandoned buildings in Abuja, lamenting that the abandoned buildings “are now hideouts for criminals within the nation’s capital.
“We will bring down all abandoned buildings with the FCT. We will also take over all those buildings because we have discovered that they are hideouts for criminals.
“When people commit a crime, they will go and hide inside them. I am confident that things would turn around.”
The minister, however, said the security situation would continue to improve.