Fashola spoke on Thursday at the weekly ministerial press briefing organised by the presidential communication team at the presidential villa, Abuja.
“The number of contracts awarded is 800, not 800 projects. Sometimes within a road you might have multiple contracts. For instance Kano to Maiduguri there are five different contracts that are unique,” he said.
“If you look at the Lagos Ibadan, there are two contracts there, for Enugu- Port Harcourt there are five contracts there. So each one has a designated supervising project officer, so in that sense it is right to say we have 800 plus contracts.”
Fashola also refuted claims that Nigeria has a housing deficit of 17m units, noting that a country with many empty houses cannot be classified as such.
According to him, the pressure on housing in the country was caused by rural-urban migration, which he said created a supply problem.
He emphasised that even though people leave their houses in the rural areas to squat in the cities, it does not amount to housing deficit in the country.
“It’s illogical to say we have housing deficit when you have empty houses. No such deficit exist anywhere in the world,” Fashola added.
“We are not in a housing crisis. Housing shortages that exist are in urban centers not in rural areas. The problem is as a result of urbanisation where people move from rural to urban centers.”
Fashola said he had consulted the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), international organisations such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank (AfDB), and confirmed that the Nigerian housing deficit reports are not correct.
He advised citizens to disregard such reports.
The minister said the actual housing deficit in Nigeria cannot be ascertained until another census is conducted in the country.
Explaining the difficulty in completing the East/West road, Fashola explained that though about 70 percent of the road was completed, it was under the purview of the Niger Delta ministry.
He also attributed the bad state of the Itu/Odukpani/Calabar road to the difficult terrain, stressing that cost of building roads in the area was high.
Also speaking on infrastructural development, he said the present administration has taken bold steps to execute projects that seemed impossible for previous governments, citing the Second Niger Bridge, Lagos-Oworonshoki road, Third Mainland Bridge repairs, Kano-Abuja road among others.
He said the ministry most times suffers a budget deficit as the money due to the ministry to meet its contractual obligations is not fully released.
Fashola added that budget deficit remained a challenge despite the current administration’s achievement in infrastructure development.
