Presidency on Wednesday justified President Muhammadu Buhari’s trip to Senegal to participate at the summit of the International Development Association (IDA) for Africa in Dakar, Senegal.
Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, while briefing State House journalists, after the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), insisted that the president should go because there’s an international conference meant for heads of states and presidents.
State House journalists had wanted to know the rationale for proceeding on the engagement, considering the attacks on his advanced team at Dutsinma, close to Katsina, in Katsina state, the death of the outgoing Secretary-General of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mohammed Barkindo, who he described as “ a worthy ambassador of the country” .
This is also as Kuje, the last city and major gateway into the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), came under severe attacks, with the deadly Boko Haram inmates were released by the terrorists
But Adesina, defending Buhari’s trip, insisted that he should attend. You should never give in to terrorists. The moment terrorists, begin to stop you from doing things, then we might as well throw up our hands in surrender. The President should go ahead. Yes, it’s an international obligation”
Also speaking after the weekly FEC meeting presided over by President Buhari, the Minister of State petroleum resources, Timipre Sylva, revealed that the Federal Executive Council approved the award of contracts and procurement and for the provision of a conference hostel facility in Yenagoa adjacent to the Nigerian content towers for the sum of N22 billion.
He disclosed that the contractor was awarded to Megastar technical construction company and it is to be constructed in 24 months.
The Minister stated that the ongoing scarcity has nothing to do with “supply issue”.
“So it’s not from us. But you know When you have an arbitrage opportunity, people will tend to take advantage of it. These are some of the fallouts of the subsidy regime.
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“If you look at it, there are no queues when you leave Abuja, in most places, only in the Abuja metropolis, you continue to have these queues. So is it that there is less apply to Abuja, than to the rest of the country? It is not so. It is because if you go out of Abuja, they can probably afford to sell at higher prices.
“ I’m sure a lot of you must be buying at higher prices, but within Abuja, because of the watchful eye of the federal government, they cannot sell at those prices. So it’s not a very attractive market for them. I think these are all things that we might have to be dealing with for a while until we’re able to fully deregulate.
“But that actually is a problem. it’s not a supply problem, the country is well supplied as it is. NNPC has very good supply. So it is not a problem from us, but it is the marketers. But we are engaging the marketers and will continue to engage them. In fact, before now NATO said, Oh, because diesel prices were now going up. And of course, you know that diesel is deregulated already.
“So, because diesel prices have gone up, the cost of their moving product has also gone up and therefore, we must try to do something about the bridging cost. We did that with them, we were able to respond to that and they were able to do something for NATO.
“ The rest of the marketers are also saying oh no, we must try to add a few things for them here and there. But we can’t continue as a government to increase the subsidy. We cannot continue to do that.
“ I don’t know whether there are queues in some places in Lagos, but the queues are reported mostly in Abuja, and in some parts of Lagos not every part of Lagos, wherever they think they can sell at higher prices. There are no queues.
“But wherever they cannot sell at prices higher than the recommended price there are queues. That is the situation we find ourselves in for now.
He however assured that the government is still dealing and engaging with suppliers.
“ And of course, I’m sure even that is going to be taken care of, but it is not a supply problem from the government.
Minister of the Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi said FEC approved the award of contract for consultancy services, and the design of Center of Excellence for environmental restoration with an integrated contaminated soil management Center.
He described the center as “very epochal, because it is meant to impact in terms of employment generation in terms of laboratory tests for land remediation efforts on the site that was contaminated.
He revealed that the contract is expected to make the soil easily cultivatable by the people for their fisheries activities for their farming activities and access to water.
“So, the design is supposed to incorporate and an oil spill emergency response department, self assessment department, soil and groundwater cleanup and remediation technologies, waste management
Others include “health and safety and laboratory department, entrepreneurship Development, library, student hostels for male and female, staff quarters, sport complex and a demonstration arena for integrated contaminated Management Center.
“The award was given to scrambucl limited at the sum of N449,250,040.50 of course inclusive of 7.5% VAT. And it is unexpected that this project completed within three months”
