Housing Estates: FG Threatens to Demolish Low-quality Buildings, Revoke Contracts
CHIGOZIE AMADI
The federal government at the weekend urged developers of its ‘Renewed Hope Housing Estates and Cities’ across 13 locations nationwide to maintain high construction standards or have the structures demolished and their contracts revoked.
Housing and Urban Development Minister, Ahmed Dangiwa, issued the warning when he led the ministry’s officials on the inspection of the ongoing construction work at the separate 1,500 and 500 in Kano state.
Dangiwa emphasised that construction must be based on contractual terms to ensure durability, stating that he will not hesitate to revoke contracts of any substandard work.
“Under the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President, we are very committed to ensuring that the houses that we build and the infrastructure is of good quality. To all the developers and contractors on our Renewed Hope Housing Projects, I want them to know that we will not tolerate poor quality work from any developer or contractor.
“ If we identify any substandard work at any of the project sites, we will first demolish the structure and the contractor will have to rebuild as per standard or we revoke the contract entirely,” he warned.
He, however, said that he was impressed with the pace of work at the 1,500 Housing Unit being built through a Public Private Private Partnership (PPP) with a consortium of developers led by Continental Civil Engineering (CCE).
“I commend them for the speed and the workforce they have mobilised. For the 500-housing unit renewed hope city which we are funding under the 2023 supplementary budget, the project is not moving at the pace that we expect and we want the developers to step things up so we can complete and commission”, he noted.
He urged the developers to adhere to the timeline and finish within two to three months, stressing that the ministry is very particular about giving Nigerians value for money, hence the reason the government will not compromise on standard.
He also explained the economic impact of housing construction, including job creation for masons, labourers, artisans, food vendors, blocks and other building materials suppliers, saying that the value chain effect of construction work is significant and creates a positive economic impact.
” We are making serious progress in our bid to actualise the agenda of this administration for housing and urban development. Our plan is to build seven Renewed Hope Cities, one in each geo-political zone and FCT.
“We currently have ongoing construction for 2,000 units in Kano, 3,112 units in FCT and 2,000 in Lagos while other locations are scheduled to come on stream. We also have construction ongoing simultaneously in 12 for Renewed Hope Estates 250 housing units each two per geo-political zone,” Dangiwa stated.
The minister also directed federal controllers and assigned monitoring personnel to ensure close supervision of work and escalation of all quality infringements for action to be taken.
