FEC approves N52.204bn for contract reviews

Speaking at a briefing after the meeting, Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed said the Ministry of Works and Housing received approvals for two memoranda, one being a revised cost for the construction of the Yola-Hong-Mubi Road, which was put at N29,826,449,000; and the approval for a refund of N18,663,843,109 to Yobe State for works done on federal roads and bridges.

“The last memo by the Honorable Minister of Works and Housing was is memo seeking Council’s approval for the reimbursement of the funds recommended for refund for Yobe State government. Yobe State government is asking for the sum of N18,663,843,109 as reimbursement for five federal roads, which they rehabilitated or constructed,” he said.

“They came back in 2018 and they’re coming back today to say that given the population of Gwarimpa, they need not two, but actually three MVA injection substations, and that contract was approved today for the sum of N1,640,406,426.26, revising the contract sum by about N1,113,406,426. Originally it was at N527 million,” he said.

The second memorandum, according to him, was for Council to “approve the award of contract for consultancy services for the pr- development of the Funtua Integrated Textile and Garment Park, in Katsina State and for the Medical Tourism Park in Lekki Special Economic Zone in Lagos State in the total sum of about N1.4 billion to Messrs Tata Consulting Engineers in partnership with Messrs Abi Grant Limited”.

The Minister of Labour abd Productivity Chris Ngige said he also presented two memoranda, including one presented on behalf of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), which is aimed at digitizing the parastatal and creating the eNSITF platform to combat the menace of fraudulent practices in the system.

“The portal management committee will manage the portal be the fourth that somebody has that there’ll be a management committee and because of that, we’ll still be there for call for the portal and the costs for the portal and management and the solutions, the upgrade and everything they are putting for eNSITF is N1.2bn

“The second memo has to do with employment, job creation. It’s a portal called Nigerian Labour Exchange (NILEX), it’s housed in my ministry but over time, because it’s not been developed, the portal is so small it cannot take stress of the number of people wanting to go into that, that digital platform is supposed to be used by employers on one hand and job seekers.

“The employers will come in and load the vacancy they have, the type of skill they want, the qualifications of people that can fit in there,” he said.