Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Tuesday denied the sum of N2billion allegedly voted for regional housing scheme by the Ministry of Finance out of the N64.991billioin budgetary proposals for the housing sector this year.
Speaking when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Land, Housing and Urban Development to defend the 2017 Budget, Fashola said that the Ministry of Finance planted it into the 2017 budgetary profile of his ministry as its own initiative tagged: Regional Housing Scheme.
“I know as much of it as you do because it is not our initiative,” Fashola told members of the Barnabas Gemade led committee.
Following the denial, Gemade ordered the committee clerk to write the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, to appear before it for explanation on the questionable vote as well as disclose what she knows about the allocation of N2billion which Fashola disowned.
Fashola at the briefing, however requested the committee to add N6billion to the total budget estimate of the ministry as an appropriated vote for payment of the $11.9million Nigeria owes Shelter Afrik , a housing development and financing organisation which has 44 African countries as members.
He added that as one who presently chairs the governing board of the organisation on the slot of Nigeria, indebted nations like Nigeria were set to be expelled by the end of this year if they refuse to pay up their dues.
