An expert in the built environment sector, Kola Akomolede, a surveyor, has said the country does not need a Works ministry. He regretted that housing has not been given the attention it needs because it has always been merged with other ministries, such as Works and Power, with attendant corruption.
Speaking in Lagos, Akomolede observed that, in the last four years, the ministry has been merged with two others. Housing suffered same fate in the last administration but for the commitment of ex-Minister Babatunde Fashola. He said he could have done better if he was allowed to handle the housing ministry alone.
Akomolede said: “Anytime you merge the housing ministry with others, proper attention is not usually given to housing issues. Before now, it was only President Shehu Shagari who gave attention to the housing ministry, he went ahead to build houses in the states of the federation, though people criticized the quality of the houses, it offered accommodation to the majority of the civil servants. He had food and shelter as his two-point agenda and that was commendable.
“Against that in the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda, there was no Ministry of Lands and Housing, he didn’t think housing was important but there was Works ministry which, like in other administrations, was used to siphon money, where huge contracts were awarded for political patronage.
‘’As a professional, l would like to see a separate Ministry of Housing where attention would focus on houses solely without a divided interest. My argument is that there should be nothing like Ministry of Works.
‘’The only work the Ministry of Works seems to be doing is mainly the construction of roads and the building of houses. We canvass that the ministry of houses should be allowed to build houses while the ministry of transportation construct roads and ministry of education construct their school. If this is adhered to, there will be need to have a separate Ministry for Works with the exclusive right to construct roads, houses, schools and hospitals,” Akomolafe said.
He called on President Muhammadu Buhari to separate housing from other ministries to make housing effective for the public.
He noted that housing is the most important factor after food. If not, why do politicians buy up houses everywhere but fail to come up with viable policies to provide mass housing. There is this theory that the colonial master thought housing was not important to Africans, they created the Government Reserved Areas (GRAs) where they accommodated their senior members of staff who were mostly white with a boys quarter for the blacks serving them, added.
On Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Akomolede advised the Federal and Lagos State governments to complete the road as it is the gateway to the nation’s economic potential. He wondered how much the nation would have lost by the neglect of the road. He criticised the idea of a particular administration abandoning the projects of previous governments even when the project is in the best interest of the public. Nation