(FEC) yesterday approved contract awards totaling about N58 billion for projects under the ministry of works and housing and the ministry of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, social development.
This is just as the federal government assured Nigerians that it is working of the economy to achieve a steady reduction of the inflation rate and an improved national economy.
Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Raji Fashola while briefing State House correspondents said his ministry had approval for the termination and reaward of the 49 kilometers section of Abaji to Kotokarfi road, which is part of the Abuja-Lokoja highway, to Messers Galt for N56.175 billion.
He said FEC also approved the revision of the contract of the Afo-Apoto-Oyo boundary road in Kwara by the sum of N251,530,000, which revised the contract sum from N3,060,000,000 to N3,311,000,000.
According to him, this is to enable the contractor to make provision for drains, replace unsuitable material and to reconstruct damaged shoulders of the road, as well as accommodate some price variation.
Also, the minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouk, said she presented two memos for the revised estimated total cost for the supply of cattle for Taraba state under the emergency agricultural integration for states affected by conflict and insecurity.
According to her, it was approved at the cost of over N2 billion.
Also approved was a memo on the national action plan on human trafficking in Nigeria from 2022 to 2026.
FEC similarly approved the revised policy on science, technology and innovation policy to help the country to keep pace with emerging technologies.
Minister of science and technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, who spoke on this said that the objective is to use technology to improve the standard of life of Nigerians.
“There’ve been tremendous advances in science, technology and innovation all over the world and this necessitated the for our science, technology and innovation policy which was put in place in 2012, 10 years ago, to be revised so that we can keep pace with new and emerging technologies.
“The main objective is for us to use science, technology and innovation, to improve the standard of living of our citizens and ensure that we have a high quality of life for all Nigerians. And this we can get if our nation becomes more prosperous, and our economy is more globally competitive.
“Again, we’ll like to see Nigeria, using this policy, to be one of the top scientific powers in the world. We believe that this will help our country to keep narrowing the gap between us and the technologically developed countries of the world.
“And ultimately, once we achieve that we should also overtake the way nations like China has done. We should be able to do so,” he said.
Meanwhile, the minister of state for budget and national planning, Clement Agba, noted that the economic indices had been favourable of late.
While speaking on the latest performance figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Agba said his ministry briefed Council on the latest performance figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), he said the economy is making a lot of progress given its consistently good performance in recent time, saying however that whether the positive indicators have had the desired impact is another matter.
Citing the National Development Plan 2021-2025, he added that work on reviving the economy is a continuous process even as he said he could not provide a definite timeline to reduce the inflation to the level that will positively impact all Nigerians
