I’m not overwhelmed running 3 key infrastructure ministries

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said on Thursday in Abuja that he was not overwhelmed running the affairs of the three key infrastructure-providing ministries.

The minister stated this at the inaugural “Buharimeter Town Hall Meeting, organised by the Centre for Democracy and Development.

The Ministries of Power; Works; Housing and Urban Development were merged by the present administration and Mr. Fashola was appointed to oversee it.

The minister, who was responding to questions from the audience, said the ministry was not bigger than Lagos State which he successfully governed for eight years.

He said “what is different is that I am working with a team I have not worked with before”, saying he had to use a reasonable period of time to study the terrain.

Mr. Fashola said he had a capable hand as minister of state in the ministry, experienced permanent secretary and reliable members of staff.

He assured that the ministry under his watch would deliver on its mandate of provision of electricity, good roads and affordable houses.

Speaking on the score card of the ministry in the last one year, the minister said he adopted three stages of “incremental, steady and uninterrupted supply’’ in the power sector.

He said the energy mix to be adopted in realising the three would be unveiled in a week’s time at the meeting of National Council on Power.

He said the country attained 5,000 megawatts electricity generation in February before the new wave of attacks on gas pipelines and oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta.

The minister noted that 23 of 26 power generation plants in the country were gas-powered and the challenge of assessing gas was responsible for the drop in electricity.

He said the administration was putting measures in place to resolve the problem.

Mr. Fashola said the administration had successfully stabilised the hitherto bad Jebba – Ilorin road and contractors would return to site of Lagos-Ibadan expressway in a week’s time.

The minister said that the ministry was working on affordable housing project.

(NAN)