Welcome Remarks by the Honourable Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, at the Presentation of the 1st to 3rd Quarters 2024 Performance Assessment on Implementation of the Presidential Priorities and Ministerial Deliverables on Monday, December 9, 2024
The Special Adviser to Mr. President on Policy and Coordination & Head, Central Delivery Coordination Unit, Hadiza Bala Usman, and her Team,
The Hon. Minister of State, Rt. Hon. Yusuf Abdullahi Ata,
The Permanent Secretary, Dr. Marcus O. Ogunbiyi,
Heads of our Agencies – FHA, FMBN, and OSGoF,
Directors,
Aides,
Members of the Press,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. It is my pleasure to welcome the Special Adviser to Mr. President on Policy and Coordination & Head, Central Delivery Coordination Unit, my sister, Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman, and her team to the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for a review of our performance.
2. Madam, we are delighted to have you with us here today. The work that you and your team are doing is critical to actualizing the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President. By constantly monitoring and shining a light on our work, the Central Delivery Coordination Unit keeps us all on our toes. Well done!
3. It has been over eleven months since we commenced reporting on our deliverables. As your team has already seen from our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarter reports, we have been focused, working hard, and creatively as a Ministry to deliver results and impact.
4. Although your assessment covers only our 3rd-quarter performance, I am pleased to update you that we have not paused but are making even more progress. Under the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Programme, we currently have construction ongoing for a total of 10,112 housing units at fourteen (14) sites nationwide. This includes 3,000 housing units for estates in 12 states—250 units each, funded under the 2023 N50bn supplementary budget—and 3,612 units for cities in Kano (500 units – budgetary) and FCT (3,112 units – under PPP).
5. From December 17 to 18, Mr. President has graciously accepted to break ground for two additional Renewed Hope Cities totaling 3,500 units —2,000 housing units in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, and 1,500 housing units in Kano. In fact, construction work is already ongoing at these sites. This brings the total active sites under the Ministry’s Renewed Hope Cities and Estates Programme to 13,612 units.
6. When we add these figures to the housing units delivered by our agencies—the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) and the Federal Housing Authority (FHA)—we are clearly on track to meet our annual target of 20,000 housing units. Initially, our plan was to deliver 500 units under Renewed Hope Estates in each of the twelve locations. However, the rise in building material costs forced us to reduce the target to 250 units, which affected our output.
7. It will also interest you to note that less than 50% of the funding for these projects is from budgetary allocation. We have embraced Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and innovatively leveraging private sector funding for the delivery of these projects because we know that the less than N50bn budgetary allocation is grossly inadequate to make a difference.
8. With more Renewed Hope Cities Sites coming up – 2,000 units each - in Nasarawa, Enugu, Borno States and housing development institutions like Shelter Afrique Development Bank (ShafDB), the Ministry wants to assure the Central Coordination and Delivery Unit that the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is fully on course to another stellar reporting round of stellar performance.
9. If we are looking at where we are coming from, we can praise ourselves. This is because we have already outperformed by 100 percent the previous 8 years before the Renewed Hope Agenda. However, when we look at the size of the housing problem which requires that we build 550,000 housing units per annum over the next years, it is clear that we are far from scratching the surface. This means we must do more. The Ministry needs a bigger budgetary allocation for housing even as we drive PPPs. We have engaged the National Assembly, and they have expressed willingness to support a N500bn budget for the Ministry in 2025. We would like the CDCU Unit to help us support and push this cause.
10. Madam, it is also important to note that our Ministry operates on two pillars: Housing and Urban Development. We are also seeking to deepen our urban development interventions. We just came back from the UN – Habitat Executive Board Meeting in Nairobi that I chaired. In our engagements on the sidelines, the Executive Director assured us that every Naira we invest in our National Urban Renewal and Slum Upgrade Programme (NURSUP) could be leveraged threefold through their institutional partners. This means an investment of N50bn could attract an additional N100bn, totaling N150bn. We need a revolving fund to drive sustainable urban development. We therefore need a minimum of a N50billion revolving fund to drive sustainable Urban Development which is key to Nigeria meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 20230. Under slum upgrades, we are providing basic services such as access roads, drainage, water, and sanitation facilities to make slum areas more livable. We currently have over 100 projects nationwide, with close to 60 completed.
11. I have taken time to speak on efforts to increase housing stock and urban development because they are the foundation of our ministry, and we have moved significantly forward since we sent in the 3rd quarter reports. We have also made progress on the other areas but the last reports that we submitted are fair representations.
12. While we celebrate these achievements, it is essential to acknowledge the challenges that have impeded our efforts, which the Ministry is hopeful of collaborating with the CRDCU to address. For example, the slow release of budget appropriation has restricted the scope and achievement of some of our Reform Initiatives. Notably, the high cost of building materials and the rate of inflation have impacted on our ability to deliver affordable housing at scale. In this regard, while exploring alterantive financing sources from the Private Sector and our Developnetment Partners, we particularly solicit the support of the CRDCU in ensuring the early release of budgetary allocation from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Economic Development.
13. We also solicit the support of the CRDCU in the area of partnerships with the State Government, National Economic Council (NEC) and also the National Assembly and other key Stakeholders; such as the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice and the Ministry of Finance in achievement of the Ministerial Deliverables on the Review of the Land Use Act and Development of fiscal incentives for Private Investors to manufacture local building components, respectively.
14. As we evaluate our performance today, I want to appreciate the efforts of the Permananet Secretary, Heads of Agencies, our Directors and the Delivey Desk Officers towards the achievement of the Miniserial Deliverables targets. I also extend my gratitude to the Special Adviser to Mr. President on Policy and Coordination, my sister, Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman and her Team for their support and diligence in tracking of our Deliverables.
15. At the Ministry we are committed to delivering on our deliverables and even exceeding them.
Thank you.
