FEC okays N206bn 12km 2nd Niger Bridge link road.

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a contract for the construction of a 12 kilometre link road for the Second Niger Bridge worth N206 billion.
The contract awarded to Julius Berger will come with associated infrastructure.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said while briefing State House corespondents on the outcome of the council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday that the approval was one of two memos brought to the council by Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola.
He said: “Also approved today is the contract for the link road and associated infrastructure for the second Niger Bridge.
“If you remember, this time last week, I was in Onitsha and Asaba inspecting the Second Niger Bridge.
“Today, FEC has now approved the award of the link road, the bridge itself is just 1.95 metres, but the link road is 11.9km and this contract was awarded to Julius Berger for the sum of N206 billion.
“It will include not just the link road but also associated infrastructure and you know this bridge is linking Anambra and Delta states.
“Remember that the project was conceived by the last administration under a PPP arrangement which failed and that is why the federal government had to take over this contract.
“So far, about N14billion had been paid to contractors handling the bridge and the contract today that was awarded is for the link and associated infrastructure that will link the bridge.”
Also approved for award was contract for the rehabilitation of the Oji-Achi- Mmaku-Awgu- Ndeabor toad in Enugu state at the cost N11.5 billion.
Mohammed said the contract was awarded to Setraco Nigeria Limited with a completion period of 24 months.
According to him, the contract had previously been awarded to a different contractor who he said had failed.
The minister explained: “What happened was that the contract was awarded earlier to a company that failed and Setraco that was given other sections of the road performed and had now been awarded the contract while that of the other contractor has been rescinded.”
FEC also approved a memo by the Minister of Finance seeking the council’s for the financial transparency policy guidelines.
According to Mohammed, the memo will bring more transparency to how government revenue and account are handled.
“As a matter of fact, with the approval of this memo it will now be possible for the public to know exactly how much revenue is collected by the government, how much is being spent just by going on the website of the various ministries, department and agencies,” Mohammed stated.
Similarly, he said council approved two other memos by the Finance minister including the one seeking ratification of the multi lateral competent authority agreement on automatic exchange of financial account information.
He explained: “Actually this is a memo which was approved and is going to assist in curbing tax evasion and improve the revenue collection of government.
“She also presented a memo asking for the approval of ratification of the African fifty article association.
“This particular memo is unique in the sense that both the African fifty project finance and African fifty project development association are actually two windows which have been created by the African Development Bank to allow for bankable infrastructural projects to be financed by the subsidiaries of the African Development Bank.
“There are certain projects which cannot be financed simply by the ADB. So, they created these two windows to allow for such projects to be financed by these two platforms and already Nigeria is one of the founding members of these two platforms and has invested heavily in them and with the ratification of this Treaty and it has made it possible for Nigeria to take advantage of this.”
A memo by the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, sought the council’s approval for a revised estimate of total cost for the engineering, procurement and construction of the OB3 gas pipeline project.
On this, Mohammed said: “Again this is a project that has been awarded but there was a need for the cost of the redesigning to seek for council ‘s approval so that there will be enough funds to execute the project.
“The project is important because it has to do with the delivery of gas from the eastern part of the country to the power turbines and to improve our power supply.
“This contract is awarded to Nestor limited and Olisa limited and the total cost of the contract is USD92milliom and N765. 968 million.”

Minister of State Solid Minerals Development, Bawa Bwari, also spoke on the memo he presented to the council, saying that FEC approved the contract for exploration and consultancy on some targeted minerals like gold, industrial minerals, earth metals, iron ore for four companies in exploration and four companies in consultancy side of it and this contract is worth N12.7 billion.