Babatunde Fashola, Minister for Works and Housing, says the government through his ministry, has created jobs for millions of Nigerians.
Fashola also said the strategic ministry has been able to provide critical infrastructure and houses across the country.
The minister who spoke in an interview with Vanguard, noted that through the works and housing sectors, government has taken millions of Nigerians out of poverty and empowered them financially.
“Nigerians that have benefited? There are thousands of them. First, the contractors, who won the contracts benefited, they got jobs, the workmen, their staffs that they used benefited, they got jobs, the sub contractors from whom they bought materials from such as cables, roofing sheets, reinforcement, paints, sanitary ware, plumbing, they benefited,” Fashola said.
The vendors who supplied sustenance at the construction site every day, they benefited, some of the ultimate beneficiaries, the allottees are benefiting, contiguous land owners are benefiting because we are constructing, their properties values are going up, they are getting value; these are all the people that the president said Nigeria can take 100million people out of poverty but it doesn’t mean he has to come and put money in your hand, is by projects, policies, programmes and so those people will probably never meet him but they have taken value. The Super Eagles, waiting on the promise of 28 years, have benefited.
“Nigerians now on the housing portal are closing out and benefiting. I was on NTA on Friday people were telling their own experience; so it is a continuing process, it is a continuing undertaking, in some cases we are in phase one, in some places we are in phase two, in some places we have finished phase three. The states have said come and take lands for phase four.
“All of the indigenes in the 34 states where we’ve been building, are beneficiaries because the economy is local, we are not taking personnel there, the manpower is being locally sourced, the products are being locally bought. So you can’t buy timber from Lagos and use it in Kano for roofing, so this is how to see benefits.”