The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a new policy towards maintaining public buildings in the country.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who announced this while briefing journalists at the end of the meeting, said the new maintenance policy and framework seeks to institutionalise a maintenance culture in Nigeria.
He said his ministry has carried out maintenance requirements of nine public buildings including a school, hospital and government office building which was used as a benchmark for Ministries, Departments and Agencies and for the consideration of FEC. The new policy, which institutionalised a maintenance culture in the country, would provide an inventory of government assets, and job opportunities for Nigerians.
“We have never developed this type of maintenance economy which we are creating today. With what we have done now, we have started with a national pilot plan for inventory of our national assets and a maintenance procurement manual which will be made available to all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, nationwide,” he said.
“It gives us an assessment of the conditions and value, then, it gives us a maintenance framework about what needs to be done after assessments and then a maintenance procurement manual,” Mr Fashola said.
Mr Fashola also announced that FEC has approved the first contract of over N812.5 million for the demarcation of specific areas of land to be affected by the actual construction of the Mambilla Hydro Power Project. He said the contract involved nine land surveying companies, adding that the demarcation would eventually lead to enumeration and resettlement.
The Minister said the contract was also preparatory to payment of compensation and commencement of main construction of the power project.
The minister revealed that the Mambilla project, which is expected to be completed in five years, will provide thousands of jobs to Nigerians. He said beyond the ultimate aim of providing power, the Mambilla project is creating an economy for many business to thrive.
Also, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, said the council had approved a contract for the replacement of damaged petroleum pipelines along the Excravos — Lagos line at the cost N3.7 billion. He said the pipelines were damaged due to corrosion and that the new contract would replace the pipelines with a new flexible pipeline. “The essence of this was that in 2014, the pipeline with which we were evacuating crude in that area gave way and so production became very marginal.
“We were producing an average of about 20,000 barrels per day as opposed to the capacity of between 37,000 and 40,000. “This contract is therefore to replace that pipeline with a new technology, flexible pipeline, to resist corrosion,” Mr Kachikwu said.
In the same vein, the Minister of State (Aviation), Hadi Sirika, said FEC approved a memo he presented for the procurement and installation of the second phase of the Controller Pilot Data Link Communication for the Kano Flight Information Region (FIR) system, which will cover Kano, Abuja and Lagos airports. He said the total contract sum is $5,403,271 which is equivalent to N1, 652,320,271.80, exclusive of five per cent VAT.
He highlighted that the contract is under the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency. The minister said when completed, the new FIR will improve communication by digital means between the pilot and the controller, improve efficiency, make decision making faster and make departures and arrival seamless and faster.
