President Bola Tinubu’s government has reconsidered the day on which Federal Executive Council sessions should be held, officially moving it from Wednesdays to Mondays.
The new policy was announced by Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information, who stated that meetings may not be held weekly unless there are compelling matters to discuss.
Dave Umahi, Minister of Works, said he provided a paper on the inherited breadth of road infrastructure from the previous administration, totaling 18,897 kilometers from President Muhammadu Buhari’s immediate past administration.
“We also brought to the notice of FEC that a number of projects were awarded, some lasting up to 20 years, abandoned ongoing with no proper funding and so on and so forth. And there’s some new critical routes totaling 12,000 kilometres and 24 bridges.
“You know, FEC approved the continuation of these inherited projects and the new proposal and directed that the Federal Executive Council constitute a committee, made up of the Chief of Staff, Minister for Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Minister for Works, Minister for Planning and Budget, GCEO/GMD of NNPLC, chairman of FIRS and SSA on Tax Reform, to meet and come up with strategies to source for the funds and everything patterning to the funding.
“FEC was also informed on the ongoing projects and to mitigate so much inflation and variation of the projects, to have some of the projects that have been completed redesigned on concrete and going forward for new projects to be done on concrete.
“So, FEC approved that concept that most of the ongoing projects should be designed on concrete pavements depending on the level of completion and if you’re doing asphalt there or also conditions for that.
“FEC also approved the coastal road running from Phase 1, which runs from Lagos to Port Harcourt to Calabar. Phase 2 runs from S4, tearing off from this stretch, to Sokoto and Ogoja.
“It was approved to be done on EPC + F, that is, engineering procurement and construction plus financing. And that eight roads that were started in the past administration for concessioning that have gone through all the processes were also approved. That the financial closure should be reached in the month of November.
“There were nine actually, but one was pulled out and that is he Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta and that has been given to the Ogun State Government based on their request that they should do the road on their own and they will follow the HDMI that is hardware development management initiative. No refunds for that but they will do it and toll it. And the new 25 roads were also approved for concessioning, which takes a very long time on the PPP model.
“Lastly, FEC approved the PPP for Ijora Park in Lagos. It was approved that it should be done on PPP. And it was won by Beta Nigeria Ltd, which was actually started by the last administration. So we just have to convey what they did to FEC which we got approval. The consultancy for NNPC and FIRS, who oversee the projects funded by them, was also approved today.”