FEC approves N39.7bn for road, erosion control projects

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the sum of N39.7 billion for road maintenance and award of contract for erosion/flood and pollution control in the country.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He said out of the sum, N20.925 billion has been earmarked for road repairs and maintenance while N17.75 billion would be expended on erosion and pollution control projects.

The minister said: “The memorandum we presented today was on behalf of FERMA (Federal Emergency Road Management Agency). FERMA is the parastatal of the Ministry of Works and Housing responsible for maintenance of federal roads.

“During the meetings of the Economic Sustainability Committee set up to manage the impact of COVID-19, one of the responsibilities of FERMA is to execute extensive labour works on road repairs and the budget of 2020 was then amended to deal with the COVID-19 impact.

“As a result, FERMA then had a total of 191 road repairs, road rehabilitation, and road intervention projects nationwide. 92 of those projects had been awarded by FERMA at its threshold level. Also, 89 of them were approved by the ministry at the ministerial tenders board threshold level.

READ ALSO: FEC approves N87.538bn for road projects in FCT, Oyo others

“So, all of those projects are now being issued letters of award, mobilization, and others. Now, there are 10 that are expected to come from the Federal Executive Council because of their financial threshold level.

“Out of those 10 projects, three were presented today. These were the Gasamu-Hamshi-Gogoram road in Yobe State awarded to MotherCat Limited at the cost of N14.528billion, the link road connecting Uneme-Tusamu-Odoga to Okpekpe in Etsako East local government area of Edo State for N991.851million, and Mamabu Donga road in Taraba South local government area of Taraba State awarded to Wishchina Engineering Limited at the cost of N6.397 billion.

“These are late third quarter and early fourth quarter interventions to respond to the COVID-19 impact on the economy. This will tell you some of the things the Minister of Finance was saying that the implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan is what will take us out of recession.”

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