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Second Niger Bridge  Ready For Commissioning May 20-FG

The Federal Government has announced that barring any last minute changes, the the second Niger Bridge wouid be commissioned May 20.

The indication emerged on Wednesday, that  the contractor which handled the Bridge will offi­cially hand over the project to the Federal Government on May 20.

The Minister of Informa­tion and Culture, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, disclosed this after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Muhammed, who stood in for the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, while disclosing the information was not specific on the date for commissioning.

He said, “The second Niger Bridge is ready for commission­ing. The contractor will hand it over on 20th of this month, it will be commissioned soon after.”

Meanwhile, FEC which con­sidered over 30 memos, approved the concessioning of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport in Kano.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who briefed alongside his colleagues at the end of the marathon meeting, said the Abu­ja airport will be concessioned for 20 years while that of Kano will be concessioned for 30 years.

The aviation minister fur­ther said that the council also approved the ministry’s change of name from Federal Ministry of Aviation to Ministry of Avia­tion and Aerospace of Nigeria.

 

Sirika said council also ap­proved the draft National Civil Aviation Policy which he said is geared towards the strengthen­ing of the civil aviation.

Minister of State, Transpor­tation, Ademola Adegoroye, said the council approved the development of Ondo Multi­purpose Port in Ilaje, Ondo State; expansion and development of Snake Island Sea Port, Lagos, and the expansion and develop­ment of Burutu Sea Port, Delta State, through a public private partnership agreement worth $4,713,841,477.

Adegoroye explained that the Ondo port will cost the private de­velopers the sum of $1,480,465,253 and would be concessioned for a period of 50 years with the accru­als to the concessionaire and the Federal Government expected to be $50 billion and $2.6 billion, re­spectively.

He said the Burutu port will cost $1,285,005,818;  it was concessioned for 40 years with the conces­sionaire and the Federal Gov­ernment expected to reap $125 billion and $9 billion, respectively.

The Snake Island Port will gulp $974,185,203 and conces­sioned for 45 years with the concessionaire and the Federal Government receiving $18 bil­lion and $5.23 billion, respectively, in accruals within the period

Gas Supply Challenges For GenCos Responsible For Power Shortages — Agba

Minister of State for Power, Jerry Agba, has explained that challenges still associated with power shortages was as a result of gas supply issues, especially with Generation Companies (GenCos).

Agba gave the explanations shortly after the Federal Execu­tive Council (FEC) meeting pre­sided over by President Muham­madu Buhari on Wednesday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He noted that negotiations were on with the Nigerian Na­tional Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd to augment gas sup­plies to distributors at local rate.

His comment came on the backdrop of power shortages still being experienced in the country despite billions of nai­ra injected into the sector by the outgoing administration in few weeks.

He said with the interven­tions being put in place, power stability was bound to come in few days.

“You’ll agree with me that of late, we’ve had problems with gas supplies for generation com­panies. We just negotiated with the gas supply companies, NNPC Limited, to augment gas supplies to distributors at the going local rate.

“Gas was sold to them at export rate, whose price differs and the collection is made on domestic rates. So there was a differential and the augment, however, we had an agreement with the NNPCL and natural gas company to supply gas to Gen­Cos commencing from last week, and they are buying at local price not at the export price.

“So with that we hope in the very near future, in a week or two we should have improved gener­ation and supply. Distribution is going to be done by DisCos which is why we are doing everything possible for transmission com­pany to have all the equipment necessary for effective trans­mission. We hope and I assure you that power generation and distribution as well will improve despite the rains that have come in now,” he noted.

On the second memo pre­sented before FEC, the minister noted that an approval was given for the award of contract for the procurement of some numbers of 33 KV circuit breakers and 120 numbers of surge arrestors for systems use for Transmission Company of Nigeria.

He assured that government was still committed to providing improved services on electricity to Nigerians.

He said, “TCN is the main body that has to do the transmis­sion. You know generation and distribution are in private hands now, so government is only re­sponsible for transmission. Most of the equipment have become obsolete over the years which is why you have breaking trans­missions, low power outage, low power supplies and outages here and there”.

 

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