Date: 2016-09-03

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said last week that the federal government decided to ban the importation of ten building materials in preference for locally produced ones.

Building materials which have been banned include doors, windows, tiles, ceilings, plumbing accessories, cables, paints and ironmongery.

"This is where we hope to receive the support of local builders, artisans and tradesmen in capacity building. There will be no capacity without opportunity. We are offering the opportunity," Fashola said at the fifth meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

Fashola said that if government's spending and contract are mainly handled by foreign companies, then the target of achieving inclusion and employment through the N6.6 trillion 2016 budget may not be attained.

"Yes, the budget will work, money will be spent, but inclusion may not happen and the people targeted for the benefit may not benefit, if the benefit is transferred to foreign countries, to foreign factories because professionals either do not participate or where they do, they prefer foreign made or imported goods to local ones," the minister said.

Fashola charged participants to work to ensure that we "build houses for ourselves, by ourselves, in order to build our own prosperity."