The Minister of State for Works and Housing, Alhaji Abubakar Aliyu, briefed State House correspondents on Wednesday after the Council’s meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The meeting, which lasted for more than seven hours, was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister said that the ministry presented two memos to the council which were approved.
“The first memo is to seek council’s approval for the award of contract for construction of Jalingo-Kona-Lau-Karim-Lamido road phase 2 which is about 29 kilometres.
“The contract at the cost of N6.92 billion inclusive of VAT; this is the phase 2 of the project; the phase 1 was completed earlier.
“The second memo which was also approved by the council has three projects; one is the dualisation of the outstanding portion of the Odukpani –Itu-Ikot-Ekpene road in Cross River State to Akwa Ibom State in the sum of N50.3 billion with a completion period of 36 months.
“This memo is a combination of three projects and they were all approved; the total sum of the three is N58.94 billion.
“On the second project, you were all aware; in Dec. 2019, there was a report in the social media regarding a bridge in Ajaokuta; the bridge was showing an opening at the expansion joint which caused a lot talk around the country.
“It was approved but actually work has commenced on that bridge and the total contract sum is N1.5 billion.’’
Aliyu said the bridge might seem a single unit but was actually segmented by expansion joints which were supposed to be maintained periodically.
He said that at that time when there was a social media outcry, the ministry was already addressing the situation.
The minister said that the bridge was safe to ply on as the ministry sent its engineers with some reporters and issued statements afterwards to tell people that the bridge was safe.
He said that the third project on the second memo was the rehabilitation of the outstanding section of Iseyin-Okeho road including two bridges in Oyo state.
Aliyu said the project was awarded at the sum of N6.87s billion with a completion period of 18 months.
On his part, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said the ministry presented two memos to the Council.
“One was for the procurement of textbooks for early childhood care and development and for primary schools class 1, 2 and 3 throughout the country.
“The memo has 15 contractors who won; the total amount was N6.45 billion with a completion period of six weeks.’’
Adamu said that the second memo was for the construction of 23.7km perimeter fence around the University of Maiduguri.
“If you could recall, it was first approved around last year.
“ But for reasons of some delay the work is going to commence only now; the project sum is N1. 4 billion with a completion period of 24 weeks.
“ The second one is connected to the first because it is for the procurement and installation of security equipment around the fence.The sum of the contract is N1.088 billion and the completion period is 24 weeks,’’ he said.
The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, said the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the completion of about 9,000 abandoned projects across the Niger Delta region.
The minister announced that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) would be constructing nine housing estates in the region while about 1,600 people had been empowered in the last 100 days.
“We briefed the council today of the number of people that have so far been empowered in the first hundred days of coming into office.
“Over 1,600 Niger Deltans have been empowered with different skills, through the skills acquisition programme.
“We are building one skills acquisition centre per state in the region and many of them are at 80 to 90 per cent completion levels.
“Each encompasses about 38 buildings, so it’s almost like a technical college, with accommodation and other facilities.
“We are also doing about nine housing estates in the region from the Ministry’s perspective, to also add value to the affordable housing of the federal government’s policy,’’ he said.
According to him, the ministry is engaging the various communities in the Niger Delta region to ensure safety of lives and property and at the same time ensure the growth of the region.
He said the ministry was carrying out remediation works in the affected states in the region.
He revealed that the ministry was also supervising the affairs of the Niger Delta Development Commission for optimal result, saying the ministry was at the verge of concluding the due process to commence the forensic audit of the NDDC.
“We have got the Bureau of Public Procurement’s ‘No Objection’ and we have also been able to get the concurrence of the Auditor-General of the Federation’s office and lead consultants have come on board.
“`At the moment we are trying to bring out the forensic auditors. Each state of the Niger Delta is a lot, we have nine lots in that section and then the headquarters is also a lot, which makes it ten.
“We have already set up centres in the ten locations for verification, evaluation and documentation of all IPCs and all award letters for contracts so that we’ll know the contingent and actual liabilities of the NDDC.
“At the end of the exercise, the federal government hopes to have a bankable NDDC, where the balance sheet can go to the bank and be accepted and bring value in terms of industrialization to the region,’’ he said.
The Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Hajiya Ramatu Tijjani, who also spoke on the outcome of the meeting, said she presented ministerial deliverables of the FCT to the Council.
She said: “We were able to shed more light on the assignment of creation of 5,000 affordable housing units in the Federal Capital Territory.
“This has gone a long way already because we have ensured, regulated and profiled investors already and have been able to secure land and make adequate provision for these 5,000 units.
“We have 30 hectares of land in each area council, multiply by six that will give you about 180 hectares of land.’’
Source: NAN
