The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved N203 million for the procurement of an information and communication device that would enhance highway management system for roads in the country.Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.“The Ministry of Works and Housing presented two memoranda to the Council. The first was a memorandum for a contract for the design and deployment of a contract performance and compliance for highway and road access management system for N203,845,332.59.“This is an information and communication technology device being procured by the ministry in order to improve its capacity to monitor not only contract performance but also maintenance of these roads and to empower not only its 36 Comptrollers of the states in the federation but also the six Zonal Directors, to improve our service delivery,” he said.
The minister said the use of information communication technology would enhance the monitoring of many roads across the country, which are at various stages of construction or rehabilitation.“The importance of deploying ICT now would perhaps be better be appreciated when it is understood that we have over 13,000 kilometres of road network at different stages of construction or rehabilitation as at the end of December 2020 and those 13,000 kilometres are manifest in over 700 different contracts.“Its so complex that some of these roads are so long so you have five different contractors for example, we have five contractors handling the Kano-Maiduguri, same for Benin-Lokoja so we have different contracts to monitor and manage so we will deploy ICT there and at full deployment, citizens will also become our army of reporters providing us with information so that we can respond more quickly. Because, this will be a web-based reporting and monitoring system,” Fashola said.
The Works Minister also said the council approved N792 million as ratification for the emergency roads repair done in Zamfara State in 2016, caused by a heavy rainfall. The rain washed out Gumi bridge, washed out Dakitakwas, Kebbi to Sokoto State border, Gusau to Talatu Mafara to Sokoto border.He said “The contract was awarded under the public procurement act in emergency situations as provisional contracts. So, we had to go through the procurement process, file reports of completion and then come to seek ratification. So, the work had since been completed but the paperwork has now led us here. And the ratification was granted today by FEC for N792,370,678.86.”
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