The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved N20,366,454,990 for some projects to be executed across the country through four ministries.
The ministers in charge of the four ministries addressed State House Correspondents on Wednesday in Abuja after the council’s meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fasola; Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Mohammed Bello; Water Resources Minister Suleiman Adamu and Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika, said the memoranda they presented at the FEC were approved.
“The first is for the award for the construction of the road linking Yaba to Gurdi Road in Abaji Area Council, at N4,648,255,381.42 with a completion period of 20 months.
“The second contract is for the third phase of the construction of roads within the city of Abaji, which is in the southern tip of the FCT. This is about 8.4 kilometres and it’s intended to complete and complement the other roads that were already there. This contract has been approved for N2,128,176,102.50 with the completion period of six months,” he said.
Sirika said the project approved for his ministry was for works on the taxiway at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Ikeja, Lagos, which will gulp about N2.3 billion.
Adamu said his ministry got approval for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Lankang Irrigation Project in Plateau State for N634.2 million.
He said the ministry was working to increase the nation’s irrigation capacity from 130,000 to 500,000 under a scheme running from 2016 to 2030.
“The ministry presented a memo to Council today (yesterday) on the rehabilitation and construction of Lankang Irrigation Project in Plateau State. This contract was approved for N634,184,783.93, inclusive of 7.5 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT), with the completion period of 18 months and a defect liability period of 12 months.
“It comprises the rehabilitation of 100 hectares of an existing pilot irrigation scheme and the expansion of that irrigation scheme by additional 500 hectares. It also includes the reconstruction of existing damage water control and conveying structure, preparation of fields and fishponds and provision of adequate water for irrigation.
“It was approved in line with government’s policy to boost food production and security. In the coming months, we will be seeing quite a number of projects related to irrigation that we’ll be presenting in line with our irrigation and drainage project in what we call the National Irrigation and Drainage Programme, 2016 to 2030, under which we hope to increase total acreage for irrigation in the country from the current 130,000 hectares to 500,000 hectares.
“From the period that we started till date, our target was to have 100,000 hectares by 2020. As at January, we had about 85,000 hectares, which is already completed. So, we are still on target towards attaining the 100,000 for 2020, under the programme,” he said.
Fasola said his ministry’s two memoranda with over N10.6 billion for project cost revision before the FEC were approved.
“What we had were two memoranda for revision of project costs and they are in aid of completion of the projects involved. The first project is the Koton-Karfe-Lokoja section of Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja highway. That cost was revised upwards by N3.076 billion.
“The second road is the Cham-Numan section of the Gombe-Yola highway. The revision of the cost is by N7.607 billion. This is to cover the cost of replacing about 11 kilometres of what we call black cotton soil,” he said.
