By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Wednesday approved the award of contract for the development of the proposed Kano-Katsina-Jibia to Maradi rail line in Niger Republic and to Dutse, the capital of Jigawa, for a total cost of $1,959,744,723.71, inclusive of 7.5% Value Added Tax (VAT).
Also, Council approved the award of contract for the design, manufacture, supply, testing and commissioning of one railway crane of 150 ton capacity for emergency and recovery of rolling stocks.
Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi who disclosed the approval to State House Correspondents after the weekly FEC meetings presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari said two memoranda from the Ministry of Transportation were presented to the Council.
According to him, “The first one is the award of contract for the design, manufacture, supply, testing and commissioning of one railway crane of 150 ton capacity for emergency and recovery of rolling stocks.
“This is to sort out say situations of accident on the track. It is for a total cost of N3,049,544,000. That’s the first memo that was approved for the Ministry of Transportation.
“The second one is the award of contract for the development of the proposed Kano-Katsina-Jibia to Maradi rail line in Niger Republic and to Dutse, the capital of Jigawa, for a total cost of $1,959,744,723.71, inclusive of 7.5% VAT, Amaechi revealed.
Also addressing the State House Correspondents, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed who spoke on behalf of the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed said the Minister also got two of her memos approved.
According to him, “One of the memos is for the procurement of 1,800 units of laptop computers for training school and computer-based test examinations at three Nigeria Customs Service training schools in Gwagwalada, Lagos and Kano for a sum of N351,540,000, with a completion period of six weeks.
Said he, “The major advantage of this particular contract is that it saves the department a lot of money in hiring consultants for training and other services.
“The Minister also got another approval for N197,843,100 for the expansion of the Nigeria Customs Service’s cash management’s software in compliance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This is also going to enhance the efficiency of the Department of Customs.
Meanwhile, Mohammed who represented the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipreye Sylva said a memo was presented Wednesday asking for approval for the augmentation of the contract for the construction of Petroleum Technology Development Fund corporate headquarters office in Abuja, for the sum of N3,773,784,399.48, therefore raising the initial approval for the contract to about N14 billion.
Explaining further he said, “the important thing about this particular contract is that the building has since been completed, it has since been in use and we inherited this augmentation from 2012, but since governance is a continuum, we are honouring the augmentation, but this headquarters building has been completed, the contractors have been magnanimous while all these arguments about the augmentation was going on, they were magnanimous enough to complete the project and many international conferences have been held in that building”.
