The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved over N809.7 billion for road construction and other projects across the country.
speaking after the virtual FEC meeting at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said council approved the change of scope for the construction of Abuja-Kaduna-Kano highway.
The meeting was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister said the road, which was hitherto undergoing repairs, would now be rebuilt, thus changing the cost of the project form N155 billion to N797.2 billion.
He identified the rehabilitated roads, as Benin-Asaba, Abuja-Lokoja, Kano-Katsina, Onitsha-Aba, Sagamu-Benin, Kano-Maiduguri, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Ilorin-Jebba and Lagos-Badagary.
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Fashola said, “We are dealing with 375 kilometres of roads. So, the completion is going to be in phases. The first phase will be the Kaduna-Zaria section, which is 74 kilometres, that will be in Quarter Four (Q4) of 2022.
“The Phase B, the Zaria-Kano section, which is 137 kilometres, should be in Quarter One (Q1) of 2023. And the last phase will be the Abuja-Kaduna section, which should be in Quarter Two (Q2) of 2023.”
The council also approved N10.4 billion for the procurement of fire-fighting vehicles and equipment for the Federal Fire Service (FFS).
The Interior Minister, Rauf Aregbesola said, “The Council considered and approved the procurement of various fire-fighting equipment. The total sum of the approval is N10,436,375,340.96.
“The breakdown of the figure is as follows: the approval covers the supply of 44 fire-fighting engines; the supply of 15 water tankers; 15 rapid intervention fire engines that can go into any nook and cranny to respond to distressed calls.
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“The approval also covers the supply of 20 basic life support ambulances. So, in all, we are talking about 79 firefighting equipment and support vehicles.”
Aregbesola said the procurement of the vehicles would enhance the capacity of the FFS to effectively control and manage fire emergencies.
The minister added that the ministry got approval for N353,219,200 for the deployment of an integrated real-time data repository equipment for the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) headquarters in Abuja.
He explained that the aim was to ensure that the NIS has its databases on one platform for effective management.
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