The Federal Executive Council has approved $183.7 million for consultancy services for supervision of three railway projects in Nigeria.
Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said the projects include Portharcourt-Maiduguri, Kano-Maradi and Abuja-Warri.
“The Ministry of Transport presented two memos and the first one has to do with a contract for consultancy services for supervision of the various railway projects. You know that we have three or four railway projects that are yet to start and they include Port Harcourt-Maiduguri, Kano-Maradi and then Abuja to Warri.
“Now, for the consultancy services, the following contractors were approved with a total cost of $183.7 million. The contractors are Xi Engineers Infrastructure Excellence/Yaroson and Partnership Limited, Core Consulting Engineering Plc that is for Abuja-Warri at the cost of $38.4 million. And then for the consultancy services for supervision of Port Harcourt-Maiduguri with batch lines to Bonny Deepsea Port and Port Harcourt Industrial Park, and then to Owerri, we have Gary consults SDBHD/Jabu Global Services Limited at $97.5 million.
“Then the last one is consultancy services for the supervision of Kano-Katsina-Dibia-Maradi rail line, to Techniques Engineering, Architecture Marketing Nigeria Limited and that is for $47,670 million, all of them for a period of 36 months,” he said.
He said the council also approved the concession agreement for Onitsha River Port to a contractor that would manage the River Port for 30 years.
Also speaking, Minister of State for Health, Mr Adeleke Mamora, said the council approved contract for the construction of the corporate headquarters of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
“From the Ministry of Health, the council approved the award of contracts for the construction and consultancy services, for the building of the corporate headquarters of the National Health Insurance Scheme here in Abuja.
“This is because it has become inevitable to expand what is on ground, to improve the operational efficiency of that agency which is the National Health Insurance Scheme and happily, the council considered the memo and approved the same,” he said.
