The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved $328.87 million contracts for consultancy services for the supervision of the various railway projects in the country.

The FEC also approved N115.4billion for the dualisation of the proposed Kano-Kazaure-Kongolam highway in Katsina State from single carriageway to a dual carriageway.

These were disclosed to State House correspondents after the week’s virtual FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

The Minister of Transportation Chibuike Amaechi, giving a breakdown of his ministry’s presentations at the meeting, said he presented two memoranda, one of which was in respect of the consultancy services, adding that the second one was for the concessioning of the Onitsha River Port.

“Ministry of Transportation presented two memos and the first one has to do with the contract for consultancy services for the supervision of the various railway projects. Remember that we have about three railway projects that are yet to start construction and they include the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri, Kano-Maradi and then the Abuja-Warri.

“For the consultancy services, the following contractors were approved, with the total cost of $183.7 million. The contractors GIX Engineers Infrastructure Excellence/Yaroso & Partnership Ltd, Core Consulting Engineering Plc. That’s for Abuja to Warri.

“For the consultancy services for supervision of Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Railway, with branch lines to Bonny Deep Seaport and Port Harcourt Industrial Park and then to Owerri. We have Kyari Consults SDMBHD/Jamood Global Services Limited at $97.5 million. The first one is $38.4 million.

“The last one is consultancy services for the supervision of Kano-Katsina-Jibia-Maradi Rail-line to TEAM (Technics Engineering Architecture Marketing Nigeria Limited) and that is for $47,670,000 million. All of them are for a period of 36 months. That’s the first.

“The second one is that the cabinet approved a concessionairing agreement for the Ministry of Transportation to concession the Onitsha River Port to a company called Inversal Elysium Consortium. They are to manage the river port for 30 years,” he said.

Asked why the Federal Government is abandoning the agreements signed with China on construction of railway in the country, he explained “actually, that is why there is a delay. We were waiting on the Chinese to give us the loans we applied for and till today they’ve not replied. They kept delaying us – will the delay extend our tenure? The answer is no.

“We’ve gone to Standard Chartered Bank and while they’ve done financial closure, they’ve approved some level of funding. We are also pursuing Port Harcourt-Maiduguri line with Standard Chartered Bank. The Lagos-Kano, part of it will come from Standard Chartered Bank, and part of it will come from some commercial banks in China”, he said.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), said Council approved a contract for the dualization of the Kano-Kazaure-Kongolam Road at the cost of N115.4 billion.

He explained that the project, which covers 131.4 kilometers, is expected to be completed within a period of 48 months.

“The instructive thing is that the financing will be done by the Tax Credit Scheme of Bua International Limited. And they will use Messrs PW Construction Nigeria limited, a company in which they have acquired some interest to undertake the construction,” he said.

Ikeazor further said FEC also approved a second memo to aid the Waste Battery Management Policy for Nigeria.

This policy, according to her, “will create a lot of jobs in the circular economy for Nigeria and at the same time protect the health of Nigerians to make sure that hazardous waste like waste batteries are properly disposed of with regulations, including recycling in Nigeria as well.

She said her ministry also presented to Council, a report on the last COP 26 (the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference) which Nigeria attended, and the country’s plans for COP 27 going forward.

Minister of State for Health, Olorunimbe Mamora said Council during the closed door, also approved the award of contract for consultancy services to facilitate the building of the corporate headquarters of National Health Insurance Scheme in Abuja.

He said: “The need has become inevitable to expand what is on grand to improve the operational efficiency of that agency, which is the National Health Insurance Scheme and happily, the Council considered the memo approved same.”

Source: The Nation Newspaper