•As Sirika insists Air Nigeria’ll fly before May 29
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the sum of N6billon for the commencement of construction of the corporate headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Minister of Agriculture, Mahammad Abubakar, who disclosed this to State House Correspondents, yesterday, said the proposed headquarters would be a 10-storey building to be christened ‘Agriculture House.”
He said the approval followed a memo presented to FEC for the project.
“Since the relocation of the ministry to Abuja over 30 years ago, we’ve not had a corporate headquarters. We are currently using an office of the Federal Capital Territory Administration which is just about three floors and cannot accommodate the entire ministry. We have about four departments which are outside the main ministry. So, the Federal Capital Territory Administration has allocated a plot to us in the cadastral zone, totalling about 1.84 hectors at a very strategic place for the construction of a 10 -storey building which we will call Agriculture House.”
Abubakar said they had purchased a building in Abuja some years back but it later turned out not to be adequate for their services. He said the building would be sold and the proceeds added to a budgetary provisions (2022 and 2023) of the sum of N6 billion to commence the project.
He said the ministry would source for more funds through interventions from the presidency and other sources to complete the project.
On rising cost of rice, the minister said a lot is being done to ensure availability of the product, to further cut down its price since Nigeria is number one producer of rice in Africa.
“There are 10 rice mills that are being constructed under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement and the President has given us intervention to complete those mills. We will commission some of them before the end of this administration,” he said.
Meanwhile, despite an order by the Federal High Court in Lagos barring the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) from issuing Nigeria Air an Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC), Minister of Aviation, Hedi Sirika, has declare that the airline will fly before May 29.
Fielding questions from journalists, he said: “Nigeria Air limited, I did say that we will get it going before the end of this administration and I’ve not withdrawn my words. We have everything in place, the aircraft are in place, offices, operational centers, staffing and everything that we need to have in place. We’re doing the last minute checks and waiting for the issuance of the AOC; and it will fly. It will be for the benefit of this country, for the size of the population, the traveling public and what it does to the economy, especially to tourism, to African integration and to the AU Agenda 2063. It is a very important project and must do, it will to happen before the end of our tenure in the next four weeks and two days.”
He also explained why workers in the sector launched an industrial act recently.
“Nigerian aviation workers are striking principally for three reasons. Reason number one, they said the conditions of service for the agencies. Number two is minimum wage implementation and number three, they’re talking about the demolition of the headquarters or the office of FAAN in Lagos.
“Condition of service is not in our hands, it’s in the Salaries and Income Wages. I personally as the Minister went there with the union three times to fast track that process. So that’s being looked at by the appropriate authority and I think they are fast tracking it.
“On the implementation of the minimum wage, that also Accountant General’s Office, Ministry of Finance and the agency concerned are working hard to ensure that that happens.
“Lastly on the demolition of the FAAN headquarters to erect offices, shopping malls and make it what you see when you travel abroad. That is also ongoing. If you ask me, make me an omelet, you can complain that I’m breaking your egg, that’s a quotation from one of the Managing Directors of FAAN, but that said, I think it’s been overhyped, taken out of context.”