The power, works and housing (PWH) sectors play vital roles in the growth and development of any economy such that getting it right in these sectors (alongside a few other sectors like education, health, agric., transport and services) almost guarantees the development of such economy.
These three sectors (PWH) represent a huge share of the infrastructural needs of Nigeria as a country and rightly so, there have been investments into these sectors by way of budgetary allocations and through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
The question is: are investments into these sectors enough to address the needs of the teeming Nigerian populace? We shall take a look at this by analyzing the Federal budgetary allocations to these three sectors with a special focus on the proposed 2019 FGN budgetary allocation to the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing (PWH).
However, there is room for improvement looking at the current level of infrastructural deficit in the country. For power, a little over 60% of Nigerians have no access to electricity while the others that do have, do not have steady supply.
In addition, there is problem of transmission capacity as the current transmission grid cannot carry more than 5,500 MW.
For housing, it was reported by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance Africa that Nigeria has about 17-20 million housing deficit. In addition, not all contributors to the National Housing Fund are able to get funds to meet their housing needs.
In the works sector, the poor state of roads in the country is reflective of the level of funds needed to ramp up the developmental efforts being made. In all, the available budgetary allocations and other infrastructural investments in these sectors have not been enough
Source: ThisDayLive
