FEC approves public building maintenance frameworks, 4 new private universities
Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved a new maintenance policy that will drive maintenance culture in Nigeria. The new policy, known as the ‘National Public Building Maintenance Frameworks’, was announced by Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing, while briefing State House Correspondents after FEC’S first meeting of the year presided over by President Muhammmadu Buhari at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The FE Cal so approved the establishment off our new private universities that met the requirements for the establishment of universities in the country.
While unveiling the new maintenance framework, Fashola said it is a precursor to the development of a “maintenance economy” aimed at providing jobs for millions of the nation’s teeming youths currently unemployed across the country.
Fashola said his ministry was also working towards developing a framework for maintenance of other government assets including roads, bridges and oil assets across the country.
“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
Fashola also announced that the award of contract for the development of basic infrastructure commitments of the Mambila power plant was also approved by FEC.
He said the Council approved the first contract of over N800 million for demarcation of specific area of land for the project, leading to enumeration and resettlement preparatory to construction of the Mambilla Hydro Power Project, noting that government was targeting economic enablement with the project.
“So this is the first step. Already, 129 different categories of Nigerian businesses have submitted proposals even before we advertised. What we have done is to develop procurement guidelines for the various jobs,” he said.
“Mambilla will consume 18 million bags of cements. As such, 22,500 trucks will be needed. So, look at the drivers and the diesels. Apart from the mining jobs, you need to transport them and you are looking at 900,000 trucks ,42,000 tonnes of steel that will be required to build this. You can see the economic impact of Mambilla,” he said.
Adamu Adamu, minister of Education, also announced FEC approval of four new private universities which recently satisfied all the necessary requirements for their establishments.
They include Greenfield University, Kaduna; Dominion University, Oyo; Trinity University, Ogun, and Westland at Iwo, Osun State.
Hadi Sirika, minister of state for Aviation, on his part said the Council approved the contract for the procurement and installation of the second phase of controller-pilot data link communications for the Kano flight information region.
Sirika said the controller-pilot data link communications, also referred to as controller pilot data link, is a method by which air traffic controllers can communicate with pilots over a datalink system.
He explained that within the Kano flight information region is Abuja and Lagos airports. The total contract sum is $5,403,271 which is equivalent to N1,652,320,271.80 exclusive of 5 percent VAT. The contract is to Nigeria Airspace Management Agency.
Sirika said when completed, it would improve communication by digital means between the pilot and the controller, improve efficiency, make decision making faster and make departure sand arrival seamless and faster.
Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for Petroleum, disclosed that FE Cal soapproved engineering procurement construction and Installation contract for the 12-inch by six-inch Opoho Okoho flexible pipelines in OML 119 which is awarded to Messrs National Oil Verco completion and MELCURT Nigeria Ltd, a consortium of two companies, at the total contract sum was $3.7 billion.