The Federal Executive Council, (FEC) on Wednesday approved contract for the construction of the 117 kilometres Gombe – Biu road, for the sum of N 27.23bn.
This is just as ( FEC) has also approved the establishment of the Malaysian model Economic Recovery and Growth Plan’s (ERGP) Special Laboratory, at a cost of N450m.
The approval is coming exactly one month after the project was first proposed at the #NES23 summit which proposed a special laboratory fashioned after the Malaysian model for accelerating the ERGP.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, disclosed this while briefing after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday.
He announced that the “cost of retaining the Malaysian consultants will be N458m” adding that ” it is going to cover about three months, the duration of the lab is expected to last a minimum of 13 weeks.
” We will cover three phases – pre-lab activities for four weeks, phase two conduction of the labs themselves six weeks and Phase three, post-lab activities, three weeks and you will have for each lab, at least a 100 people from a cross-section of the public and private sectors, so that is the structure of the lab.
“So they will do the pilot one. Subsequent labs will not be them. They will help us, they will bring their international connections, reach and give it credibility, and it will be 500,000 dollars per lab.”
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Udoma said the approval was the sequel to a memorandum presented by his Ministry “to retain some consultants to help us to conduct some pilot labs”
Under the plan, the ministry aims to conduct three laboratories in “agriculture and transportation, power and gas, as well as manufacturing and processing.”
The key objectives of the labs are to identify all relevant key stakeholders from the public and private sector that are crucial in the delivery and implementation of the ERGP initiative, to create ownership early on in the development process.
BusinessDay gathered that government will regularly review and re-evaluate the ERGP and sectoral plans against set targets and progress and will also identify gaps in the current ecosystem and the key success factors.
The minister said the Malaysian model labs “will identify entry point projects, key performance indicators, breaking down silos and encouraging key players”
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The laboratories, it was also gathered will focus on mobilising private sector investment to finance specific capital projects.
The government had during the last #NES23, mulled the idea of using the PPP model for infrastructure development, to bridge the expected shortfall in revenue for project execution.
Speaking on the Malaysian model labs on Wednesday, Udoma noted that ” since public resources are limited, these labs will bring in private sector players.
“We will look at the various areas, including infrastructure, manufacturing and bring them in and mobilise private sector financing and resources for the labs. So what council has approved today is that we bring in some consultants who did a similar thing in Malaysia to try to help us build our own capacity, they will just help us at the beginning and after that, we will take over and do it ourselves”
Speaking on the road project, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed that the entire road excludes the 9km that had been constructed by the Gombe State government.
The road is in the strategic and agriculture rich region of the northeast which also accesses to Dadin Kowa hydropower plants.
Tony Ailemen, Abuja
