BEVERLY HILLS, August 31, (THEWILL) – The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the name change of the Ministry of Mining and Solid Minerals to the Ministry of Mining and Steel Development with a road map for the growth and development of the mining industry.
The Minister in charge of the mining sector, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, in company of the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed; the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu and the Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh briefed reporters on the outcome of the meeting held in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.
Fayemi revealed that the road map is meant to outline the contribution of mining to the growth of the GDP in line with the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to diversify the economy away from oil.
Ogbeh said that the Council similarly approved the renewal of contract for the electronic wallet technology platform for delivery of fertiliser to small-holder farmers in Nigeria.
“The e-wallet is a programme of the old administration under the current president of ADB. The programme ran very well in 2012 and 2013 but had few hitches as Ministry got involved in trying to select the providers,” he said.
“This led to the figure of debts piling up to the sum of N67 billion.
“Council today approved the extension by one year of the service provider. They are at the end of the year to transfer all the data to an in-house group that will manage the system because the price is quite high, so that we can keep on monitoring who gets what, at what price and we can also keep an eye on the cost.
“They will work with us for one more year, teach our people how to do it, domicile the data of farmers which is 20 million of them and continue to work on how to get agriculture inputs to farmers and keep away those who tend not to deliver but make claims.”
Meanwhile, the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and the University of Ibadan (UI) also got contract approved for the construction of a university library and international hall respectively during the meeting.
According to Adamu, it approved the construction of a post-graduate hall, International House, for the UI, at a cost of N1.302,709,02.34 to be completed within 44 weeks and reconstruction of new library for UNILAG at the cost of N1.935,135,87.35 billion to be completed in 64 weeks.
The government also assented to a bill for the 2016-2018 external borrowing rolling plan to be sent to the National Assembly.
Story by David Oputah
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