•••As FEC Approves N43b For Completion of Roads, Bridges; N5.7b To Construct Sugar Dev. H/Quarters
The Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, has attributed the current power outage across the country to a number of challenges, which he said, are being addressed by the Federal Government.
He listed the collapse of the national grid, scheduled maintenance of facilities, vandalization of pipelines and disputes around availability of gas and payment for gas contracts between gas companies and power generating companies as major issues that have caused the power outage.
Addressing State House Correspondents after the week’s virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday, presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Minister assured that challenges caused by the nationwide blackout, had been addressed.
“It is a combination of many factors that compounded the problem we are having on the grid. We have recovered the grid now. The grid is back and we are trying to get more megawatts to push on the grid.
“We have set up small committees all geared towards getting more megawatts to put on the grid. Basically, the problem around gas. “The reason we are facing the situation now is as a result of the shortage of gas and some of the generators have to go to maintenance. It is a scheduled maintenance and it is supposed to be scheduled outage, but we had not envisaged that we will have issues around vandalization of pipelines, which the NNPC has addressed as you can see evidently everywhere, aviation fuel, and petrol in the filling stations,” he stated
The minister who also spoke on the quantity of electricity generated in the country, said, “we have capacity of 8,000 megawatts – the one on the grid, imbedded and captive. If you combine all of them, you will get these problems that we are encountering. We are on top of the challenge and very soon, we will come out of it.”
He said the sum of N5billion was approved by FEC to open up and expand – Lagos/Ogun where presently, they may not be enjoying quality electricity.”
He stated also that FEC approved a total of N43,052,394,598 to facilitate the completion of projects including roads and bridges in various parts of the country.
The Minister of State, Muazu Sambo who briefed after the meeting said the projects include the realignment of the Kano state border and the Birnin Kudu-Bauchi state border Road at the total sum of N10,133,856,109, 100.
He said, “this section of the road is notorious for fatalities and the loss of several lives over the years.”
Sambo said, “the second project approved is the reconstruction of a substandard breach at Pada road in Kogi state at the sum of N4,738,135,600 with a completion period of 18 months as well as the construction of the Kaiyama Kishi Road in Oyo/Kwara states in the sum of N24,072,136,320 340 with a completion period of 36 months.
The Minister said Council further approved the reconstruction of a substandard bridge along Ihugh-Damkori-Vandeikya-General hospital junction-Ogoja Road in Benue/Cross River states at the sum of 4,108,266,569, with a completion period of 24 months.
He added that the approved projects will bring to an end the menace of loss of lives due to bad roads, and lack of infrastructure.
According to him, the approval would also open up the communities around the project areas, stressing that “they will provide access for the evacuation of goods and services and generally enhance the socio economic lives of Nigerians living in the project areas directly and indirectly.”
Council further approved a memo brought by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment on behalf of the National Sugar Development Council for the construction of a N5,756,833,616 billion new corporate headquarters in Abuja, within 24 months.
The Minister, Otumba Niyi Adebayo explained that the job of the National Sugar Development Council, a parastatal under his Ministry, “is to catalyze the development of the sugar industry with a view to ensuring that Nigeria attains self sufficiency in the production of sugar and also with a view to exporting sugar in the nearest future.”
The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami said, FEC approved two items from his ministry relating to what is being done to advance the fight against corruption, both locally and internationally, to the next level.
According to him, one of the item is the approval for the repeal of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Act.
“As you are rightly aware, there exists what is called an Act of the National Assembly, which is known as the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act. C 15, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.
“We presented before the Federal Executive Council the amendment bill or repeal bill that is targeted at enhancing what these two bodies are doing. The Code of Conduct Bureau is simply responsible for the enforcement of the code of conduct for public officers and the Code of Conduct Tribunal is responsible for enforcing, by way of judicial trials and proceedings, which is associated with the code of conduct of public officers.
“So, what we have done this afternoon is to present a bill that seeks to enhance what we have been doing, arising from the identified gaps, for the purpose of enhancing the functions of these two bodies, both in terms of the composition of the tribunal, because we have limited number and the desire arises for expansion of the scope in terms of the number of the panel that should be seated for the purpose of addressing the issues associated with breaches that are presented before the tribunal by the Code of Conduct Bureau.”