The Federal Executive Council, on Wednesday, approved the construction
of a new banquet hall in the Presidential Villa for the sum of N2.2
billion.
The approval is part of the final set of N19.4 billion contracts for
this year covering road construction, rail transportation and
infrastructural development in the Federal Capital Territory.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben
Abati, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, said
the new banquet hall would have a capacity of 150 seats.
He said subsequent Federal Executive Council meetings would be
devoted to reviewing what had been achieved by government in the last
one year.
Dr Abati, who stood in for the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku,
said aside from the roads, rail and other contracts, the council also
approved the award of contract for the conduct of fiscal allocation and
statutory disbursement audit for 2007 to 2011 as well as oil and gas
industry audit.
He said the approval was in conformity with section 2 of the NEITI Act 2007.
He said: “The objective of this initiative is to ensure transparency
and accountability in the application of resources from payments
received from extractive industries and to further ensure that all
fiscal allocations and statutory disbursements due from the Federal
Government to statutory recipients were dully made.”
Abati noted that the essence of the contract was to enable NEITI
track extractive industry sector funds paid into the federation account
as distributed and received by federal, state and local government
areas.
He said there would also be special emphasis on the application,
utilization of the funds, on beneficiaries of the 13 per cent derivation
and relevant federal institutions that directly received allocations
from the Federation Account.
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