FEC Okays N46.1b augmentation for Kashimbila dam project

THE Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the augmentation of the contract sum for the implementation of the ongoing Kashimbila hydro-power project to the tune of N46.1billion.

Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, disclosed this to State House correspondents during a briefing on the outcome of the council’s meeting on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the contractor has already spent about N24billion out of the money approved for augmentation.

He said: “We got an augmentation of N46.15billion. That will be enough. Already, out of this, probably about N24 billion had been spent by the contractor. He has spent more money and done more work than the actual augmentation.

“We have received commitment from the contractor that there will be no further review and that the project will be finished within the next 12 months.”

He asserted that government would complete most of the 116 inherited projects under the ministry in line with the water roadmap.

FEC also took briefing on the challenges facing the continued voter registration from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and expressed satisfaction over how the exercise has gone so far.

Briefing correspondents on the matter, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the registration would go on for 90 days and a further 90 days thereafter.

He said: “We invited the chairman of the INEC to address council on the ongoing Voters registration and to let us know the challenges he is facing.

“The import of the exercise and I think Council was very satisfied with the presentation. First, he made it known that this is the first time that we are going to have a real continuous voters registration. Not the one that comes on before election or registration that goes on only in some parts of the country.

“He also explained why it is not possible for the exercise to be conducted on polling unit basis because we have about 119,000 plus polling units, we need a minimum of five personnel to man each unit and the cost cannot be accommodated by their budget, of course, the next preferred option would have been to take it to the local govt which again, because of paucity of funds, they could not accommodate.

“That’s why they are doing it at the local government basis.

“But the important thing is that it is continuous. It will go on for the next 90 days and then continue for another 90 days.”

Also taking on the health sector, Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, spoke on measures to deal with the threat of Ebola virus which has resurfaced in Congo Democratic Republic (DRC).

He said a standby team was already in place to move to any location when needed.

Adewole stated: “In the last couple of days, we are aware of the outbreak of ebola in DRC. There are implications for this because one single case will enable us trigger a public health alert.

“For us as a country, we need to now step up. Fortunately for us, ebola is not indigenous to Nigeria.

“For us to have ebola outbreak in Nigeria, it is has to be imported. And so, what we need to do is to step up preparedness at all our borders: land, sea and air, to ensure that we could quickly identify a probable case, offer additional screening and quarantine so that we do not get Nigerians with ebola.

“The Acting President directed that we should step up all activities at the border points and I did visit the port health services at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport to confirm that surveillance activities are ongoing.”

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Muhammed Bello, disclosed that FEC also considered augmentation of infrastructure in Karu phase 2, a satellite town in Abuja involving the extension of road network, rehabilitation of 31 roads in 5 sectors of the area.