The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, has said that the memo presentations made by some Ministers were also approved by FEC including the formalisation of the Police Special Service in the interest of transparency and accountability.
He explained: “The Minister of Police Affairs also had an important scheme which was approved at Federal Executive Council meeting.
“It is the deployment of what they call Special Police Services. And this is about a new system that will formalise what has existed with us all the time.
“You know police provide escort and guard for big corporations, banks, and so on. Now, in the interest of transparency and accountability, the government is formalising this relationship through the introduction of tariffs and billing schemes, using PPP (Public Private Partnership arrangement).
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“The police projected the use of consultant that will help them to manage this and part of the revenue will go to Federal Government. Part to the police for allowances and part to the consultants as own fees.
“This is something that has been going on for many years virtually in all countries of the world. But in our own case, it has remained largely undocumented or non-formalised.
Government is therefore concerned about leakages in revenue and incomes which should be blocked.”
Shehu said Council also approved contracts worth N754,048,161.25 for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for capital projects.
He said: “These are mainly for the supply of communication gadgets at the Command and Control Centre to enable EFCC comply with the modern-day investigative techniques, improve its operational efficiency, and support the administration of criminal justice system in the country.
“So, these are basically defensive and offensive cyber-security systems.“
Garba also stated that the Minister of Transportation had approval worth N1, 551,872,886.35 for the construction of network of roads at Federal Ocean Terminal at Onne, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The Minister of Water Resources also got additional costs for the ongoing work, especially for the consultancy in amount of N161,008,500.
This is an additional cost for the consultant supervising and managing Biu Mega Water Supply Project in Borno State with the overall cost risen to N9,361, 118, 756.25.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Enihare also confirmed that the Council approved the procurement contracts for his ministry worth about N8.6 billion.
He explained: “The Ministry of Health presented three memos, which were all approved. One of them was for the procurement of test kits for HIV/AIDS.
“As you all know, Nigeria has succeeded in driving down the HIV prevalence from 3% to 1.3%. The nationality indicator and the impact survey that was done recently, now we want to push it further down by being able to do more testing, particularly of mothers who may be carrying HIV and they don’t know it, and they can pass it on to their unborn children.
“That’s sort of called the prevention of mother-to-child transmission and also without routine tests that will be done on people who may have absolutely no symptom at all but are carrying HIV virus.
“So, these test kits we are procuring and we’re also including those test kits that can also detect syphilis.
Syphilis as you all know is another sexually transmitted disease. So, this memo was presented today and passed by Council.
“The other two were memos from NAFDAC, one of them was meant to buy equipment for six laboratories in the country and the memo was also passed without any question. It’s to update and upgrade the laboratories of NAFDAC.
“The third one is a new vaccine laboratory that will help us when we start manufacturing vaccines. As you know NAFDAC is a regulatory organ and their job is to test the vaccines that are produced, whether they are fit or not.
In order to do that, they must have a laboratory, they must have the WHO approval of what we call the Maturity Level 3.
“So, they are working on getting Maturity Level 3 by having laboratories, including animal house and the remodeling of the existing facilities.
“For the vaccine laboratory, it’s N3,064,582,050.01. For the laboratory equipment, it’s N1,262,269,939. For the kits, they are N4,347,500,000.”
Minister of Power, Mamman Sale on his part, said his ministry presented three memos which were all approved.
He said: “One was for the construction of 45 km Offafa-Umuahia Transmission Line in Abia State, in the sum of $170,465 plus N814.1m.
“The second one is the construction of 150 33 132 33 1by 60 substation at Obajana with line base extension at Lokoja in the sum of N259.9m.
“The last one is the construction, design, and supply of 2 by 50 MVA 132 33 substation at Ikom with 2 by 132 line base transmission at Calabar, Cross River State. It also includes the design and construction of 220 km Calabar-Ikom 132 Cable Double Circuit Transmission Line. The amount is $39.9m plus N9.5b.”
(Edited by Tunde Orebiyi)
