The Federal Government is indebted to 3,504 contractors to the tune of N69.9bn for various housing projects executed across the country, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said.
Fashola stated this on Thursday when he appeared before the National Assembly joint committee on Housing to defend his ministry’s 2021 budget estimates.
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He said the sum of N76.4bn was proposed as capital allocation for the housing sector in the 2021 budget.
He said: “When you look at our 2021 budget, we are almost on a very tight fix because if we have liabilities of N69.9bn, how far will a budget of N76.4bn then take us.
“However, let me point out that budget of N76.4 billion was based on the envelope prescription from the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning and also the financial realities at the time the budget occurred and also the price of oil.”
He, however, said the ministry had completed a total of 1,786 National Housing projects across the country out of the 3,926 projects initiated by the government.