CHISOM METU
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the National Quality Policy.
Also, a total contact sum of about N9,334,210,910 was approval by Council for roads and power projects across the country.
Minister of Industry Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, said the the policy is to ensure that goods exported from Nugeria are accepted by the importing countries.
He said: “For a long time, Nigerian exporters have been suffering because of lack of quality of their goods. We felt that it was high time we actually have a policy which will create a situation whereby standards of the Nigerian goods that are exported would be raised such that that rejection would stop.
This policy will create a situation whereby the government and the private sector will be able to collaborate to set up quality testing centers, testing labs which we hope will have accreditation with international centers, such that any good that has been approved to have met the standard, would be of international standard”.
Adebayo noted that council also approved the Nigerian/Hungarian Trade Agreement. He said the agreement between the two countries have now been ratified, adding that the whole essence is for Nigerian businessmen to have access to export their goods to Hungary and to further increase trade between the two countries.
The minister said council also approved a N50 million variation of power contract in the Kano Free Trade Zone.
Adebayo, explained that the contract was awarded in 2018 for underground cabling for power project within the Kano Free Trade Zone but unfortunately it was not completed before certain specification changes were made.
“So the contractor requested a variation of six percent increase of the initial contract sum, which amounted to about N50 million. Council has approved that variation and the job which has reached 93 percent completion will be completed within the next six months,” he said.
The Minister said, Council also approved another contract for Nigerian Export Processing Zone Authority for the purchase of a property in Lagos to be used as their Lagos zonal office.
Also briefing correspondents on the outcome of the weekly FEC meeting, Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed that council approved the contract for the design and deployment of a contract performance and compliance for highway and road management system for N203,845,332.50.
He said: “This is an information and communication technology device being procured by the ministry in order to improve its capacity to monitor not only contract performance but also maintenance of its roads and to empower not only its 36 controllers in each of the state of the federation but also, the six zonal directors to improve our service delivery.
“The importance of deploying ICT now perhaps would be better appreciated when it is understood that we have over 13,000 kilometers of road networks at different stages of construction or rehabilitation as at the close of December 2020. And those 13,000 plus kilometers are manifest in over 700 different contracts. I continue to explain this that some of our roads are so long that we have five different contractors. Like the Kano-Maiduguri road for example, we have five different contractors there, Benin to Lokoja, we have five different contractors there and so on and so forth.
“So we have different contacts to manage and so we are deploying ICT there. Upon full deployment, one of the things you will see is that, citizens will be expected to become army of reporters providing us with information so that we can respond more quickly because, this will be a web based reporting and monitoring system”, Fashola said.
The minister said council also approved the ratification of the emergency roads repair done in Zamfara State in 2016 caused by a heavy rainfall. The rain washed out Gumi bridge, Dakitawa, Kebbi to Sokoto State border, Gusau to Talata Mafara to Sokoto border.
He said “the contract was awarded under the public procurement act in emergency situations as provisional contracts. So we had to go through procurement process, file reports of completion and then come to seek ratification. So, the work had since been completed but the paper work has now led us here. And the ratification was granted today by FEC for N792,370,6078.86.”
The minister of state for power, Goddy Jedi-Agba, said council approved two months extension and the the sum of N124.2 million for the variation of contract for the construction of sub-stations projects in Lanlate and Abeokuta.
He said: “The contract was awarded because of the typography of that area. The typography is tricky and so there is a need to upgrade and make the facilities usable and accessible by the people. So, if we have those two substations fixed, the transmission of power will be stepped up in that area and the whole of Ogun State and most of the South West will have improved power.”
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said council approved the sum of N1.146,659,500 billion for the award of contract for the installation of Solar street lighting for the Karshi-Jikwoyi dual carriage road in Abuja.
