Ministry of Works gets N916m to digitise operations

Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Wednesday, gave indications that the Federal Executive Council, FEC, granted approval for the ministry to go paperless in its operations going forward.

To this end, the sum of N916,813,356 was approved for the digitization of the operations of the ministry, especially to document projects it has carried out across the country.

Fashola said: “The Ministry of Works and Housing, presented three memoranda to Council, they were project and contract memoranda. The first was for the digitization of the processes and workflow and systems of the Ministry of Works and Housing. Essentially, to convert all our paper records, files, our memorandums into digital format and move to a paperless office, if you like, through a web-based application.

“So that memorandum was considered and approved by Council, it was for the sum of N916,813,356, in favour of a company called Digital Communications Consult. The implementation is 12 months.”

He noted that the second project involved the augmentation of the price of an existing contract, which is a contract for the construction of the Kaduna Eastern Bypass, a very critical road that connects Kaduna with about 11 other states in the country.

According to him, the contract has been long standing, having been awarded since 2002, but largely unfunded.

“We resuscitated it back to life through our Sukuk Project. It’s 48 kilometres, about twenty-something kilometres has been completed, but the rates at which the contract was awarded has become obsolete because of inflation.

“Council has considered and approved an augmentation to increase the contract size from N38 billion to N74.649 billion. So that’s an augmentation of N36.459 billion.

“The third contract that was approved was under the Tax Credit Programme, covered by Executive Order 7, which was issued by Mr President on the 25th of January, I believe 2019. Yes, that Executive Order 7 invites and allows private sector members of our community in Nigeria to invest in public infrastructure, especially roads, by spending their taxes in advance and then claiming the tax credit later.

“In this case, we approved four roads, all of them in Kwara State. The total is a distance of 283.938 kilometres, that’s the total length of the four roads. The approval was for Messrs BUA International Limited. BUA is a company famous for cement, but they also do other things. One of the reasons why they are investing in Kwara is because some of their operations, including sugar and all of that is impacted by road network supply.

“The roads involved are Bode Sa’adu-Kaiama-Kosubu Road, 130 kilometres, awarded at N152.843 billion; Lafiagi-Shonga-Bacita Road, 74.3 kilometres, awarded at N80.222 billion, and Eiyenkorin-Afon-Ojoku Offa Road, 42.638 kilometres, awarded at N56.329 billion, and Okuta-Kenu-Tebe Road, 37 kilometres, awarded N37.887 billion naira,” he stated.