Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Raji Fashola, Thursday, said Federal Government will soon enforce the strict compliance to the master plans of Festac town and Gwarinpa Housing estates.
Festac Town is a federal housing estate located along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway in Lagos state.
Gwarimpa Housing Estate, which was built by the administration of late General Sani Abacha, is located in Abuja.
Fashola, who spoke when members of the Senate Committee on Housing paid an oversight visit to his ministry, alleged that the original master plans of the two estates had been altered by their occupants.
He said his office received petitions that some residential buildings in Gwarimpa estate had been converted to night clubs.
To this end, he gave the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) the marching order to address the situation or be sanctioned.
He said: “One of the things we inherited was complains and petitions from Gwrimpa residents. They were petitioning us in the ministry over and above the agency (FHA) than owns Gwarimpa Housing Estate, that their roads are bad. So, we intervened.
“They were petitioning us about double allocations and we have a lot of decisions to show you. By the same token, there are issues into what FESTAC has become instead of the model that it was designed to be.
“Just few days ago we were in a meeting here (the ministry) with the MD of FHA and I told him that those of you who have served there (at FHA) caused the problem of FESTAC and they reclaim it back.
“We are taking decision now about violation of users; they are converting residential areas into night club in Gwarimpa. Those are the marching orders will be giving them to go and do their job, otherwise, we will come down heavily on you.
“How do we reclaim FESTAC? FESTAC can work again. But somebody has a job there to do and if they can’t do it, we should change them’’.
The minister, who gave a breakdown of the housing sector budget for 2019, said the total appropriation was N83.761,180,646, stating that N43,966,228,795,23 was released, while N33.4billion was expended in the year under review.
Earlier, the Chairman,Senate Committee on Housing, Senator Sam Egwu, said:“It is our constitutional duty to checkmate activities of the ministry and see how it has implemented what we gave it as budget”.
He called on the ministry to send proposal to his committee to enable the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) to perform optimally.
