Inspection Tour Of South-South Zone : Fashola Preaches Peace As Only Viable Means To Achieve Economic Recovery, Prosperity *“Everybody wins when there is peace and nobody wins when there is conflict”, he says *Commends National Assembly, South-South Parliamentarians for support on Infrastructure Development *Underscores role of FG , Federal Controllers of Works as partners in progress not competitors with States The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola SAN has advocated peace in the country as the only means to achieve the overall development of the country saying in the atmosphere of peace everybody wins while nobody wins in a situation of conflict. Fashola, who spoke while touring on-going Federal road projects across the five South-South States of the country, said in spite of political and ideological differences, the most important objective of the nation was to develop Nigeria for the benefit of all Nigerians. In all the States he paid courtesy calls on the Governors after inspecting the projects, the Minister reiterated the importance of peace as a vehicle of development through investments by both local and foreign investors pointing out that no investor would want to commit his capital in an insecure and conflict prone environment. Speaking against the backdrop of constant sabotage of gas pipelines in the Niger Delta region which had a negative impact on Gas supply to power plants in the country, Fashola told his hosts, “We need to find peace here very quickly and the story must change and this is not a place the story suggests you can’t work”, adding that the main reason for his visit was to come and see first-hand whether what was being said about the region was true. The Minister, who acknowledged that the grievances of those who sabotage the pipelines was equally important added, “You will see that in the last few days, the Acting President has been particularly busy in this area trying to reach out to communities to see what methods and efforts would bring peace; because that is really when we will begin to talk of the economy and prosperity, when we have peace”. “So as I continue to say, our brothers who are angry in this Nigerian family must understand that damaging the household is not the best way to express their anger. That does not make their grievances unimportant; but destroying the house and bringing down the roof does not solve their anger. So there must be a meeting of minds somewhere”, the Minister said. According to him, “Let us produce fuel, let us earn money; we fought for OPEC to cut production so that the price can go up so why are we now breaking the pipelines? It means that we can’t produce and benefit from what we fought for. The price of oil has gone up from over $40 to over $50. We made all the efforts through OPEC and now we can’t benefit from it, it doesn’t make sense”. The Minister, who pointed out that peace would mean that teachers and workers could be paid, while gas production would be enhanced to support more power production, declared, “That will give comfort to small businesses, villages, communities, welders, when we have the extra 3,000MW. Then it is in that atmosphere of peace that we can then solve the problems of our brothers. Everybody wins when there is peace and nobody wins when there is conflict”. Fashola, who said more ambassadors were needed who would be proud and feel safe to work in the region, said that would encourage investments in infrastructure which, according to him is desperately needed in the region adding, “But we can only do that by collaboration, by peace and partnership.” The Minister, therefore, advocated a better synergy between the Federal and State governments in the development of the country pointing out that the Federal Controllers of Work in the various states were sent as ambassadors of the Federal Government for the establishment of partnership between the two levels of government. At the Government House Yenagoa where he paid a courtesy call on the Governor of Bayelsa State, for example, Fashola reiterated his message to all the other Governors he had visited during the tour of the region, “I will urge you to accord the Federal Controller of Works here the same if not better treatment which we accord the foreign people that come here. They are our Ambassadors for partnership and collaboration with you and not to compete with you”. According to the Minister, “We can only address the infrastructure work that needs to be done here  by peace and partnership”, adding that not only did the Governor and himself have their jobs cut out for them but the governors in the South-South “must step up now and change the conversation” around the region. At an interview after inspecting the road projects in the State including the construction of the Yenagoa-Okaki –Kolo Road, the Minister, who acknowledged the challenges of infrastructure in the region due to its topography, however, said the importance of the region to the Federal Government was such that it must get all the attention it deserved. He reiterated that paucity of fund was not the major challenge to completion of road projects, especially in the Niger Delta region adding that it took the commitment of the Buhari administration, which he said increased capital budget from 15 per cent in the 2015 and previously to 30 per cent in 2016, to remobilize contractors back to sites they abandoned for more than two years due to non-payment of contract fees. According to the Minister, “As at the time when we had money, when a barrel of oil sold for $100 per barrel, we did not take the issue of roads seriously because the capital budget then used to be 15 per cent. It is the Buhari administration which is increasing capital budget to 30 per cent which means that this government is taking the issue of roads more seriously and that is why we are here.” The Minister commended the members of National Assembly for their supportive role in approving budgetary provisions for the Ministry and especially for their cooperation towards the proposed new bulk budgeting system for infrastructure development which would help ensure that Contractors no longer abandon project sites simply because their names were not in the budget for a particular year. Fashola also thanked the lawmakers especially those representing the people of the Niger Delta states, for their contribution and support to the on-going infrastructure development across the country and Niger Delta saying their cooperation had enabled the government to forge ahead with the remobilization of contractors to previously abandoned road contracts including the Yenagoa-Okaki –Kolo Road. The Minister, particularly commended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Senator Magnus Abe and former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Halims Agoda for drawing his attention to various roads in their Constituencies which according to him, had received due contract approval resulting in the remobilization of the contractors and resumption of activities on the sites. On-going road projects inspected during the three-day inspection by Fashola and senior officials of the Ministry include, the Calabar-Ikom-Ogoja Road (Sections 1 and 2), Calabar-Akamkpa Road and Akamkpa-Alesi-Ugep (Iyamoyong), Calabar-Ugep-Katsina-Ala, Clabar- Odukpani Junction among others in Cross River State, Umuahia-Ikot-Ekpene in Abia/Akwa Ibom States, Ikot-Ekpene-Aba-Port Harcourt and Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt Expressway (Section iv). Others are Bodo - Bonny road with Bridges  across Afa, Opobo and Nanabie Creeks in Rivers State ,Warri-Sapele  Expressway (repairs) and Sapele-Ewu (Section 1) and Sapele-Agbor in Delta State and Dualisation of Lokoja-Benin road (Section iv) and Ehor-Benin City in Edo State, among others The Minister had earlier undertaken a similar inspection tour of highway projects in the South-East and North Central Zones of the country. ...

US$151m, N8b Looted Funds Recovered As FG's Whistle-Blower Policy Yields Fruit The Federal Government's Whistle-blower policy has started yielding fruit as it has so far led to the recovery of US$151 million and 8 billion Naira in looted funds, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said. In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday, the Minister said the looted funds, which do not include the $9.2 million in cash allegedly owned by a former Group Managing Director of the NNPC (which was also a dividend of the whistle-blower policy), were recovered from just three sources through whistle-blowers who gave actionable information to the office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation. The biggest amount of $136,676,600.51 was recovered from an account in a commercial bank, where the money was kept under an apparently fake account name, followed by 7 billion Naira and $15 million from another person and 1 billion Naira from yet another. ''When we told Nigerians that there was a primitive and mindless looting of the national treasury under the last Administration, some people called us liars. Well, the whistle-blower policy is barely two months old and Nigerians have started feeling its impact, seeing how a few people squirrelled away public funds. It is doubtful if any economy in the world will not feel the impact of such mind-boggling looting of the treasury as was experienced in Nigeria. ''Yet whatever has been recovered so far, including the $9.2 million by the EFCC, is just a tip of the iceberg,'' Alhaji Mohammed said. He appealed to Nigerians with useful information on looted funds to continue to provide the authorities with such information, saying confidentiality will be maintained with regards to the source of the information. The Minister also reminded Nigerians of the financial reward aspect of the policy, saying ''If there is a voluntary return of stolen or concealed public funds or assets on the account of the information provided, the whistle blower may be entitled to anywhere between 2.5% (Minimum) and 5.0% (Maximum) of the total amount recovered''. ...

Insufficient Budgetary Provision Responsible For Untimely Completion Of Road Projects - Fashola The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, has stated that the major factor militating against the timely completion of road projects is insufficient budgetary provision for projects to sustain annual cash flow requirement levels, adding that this underscores the need for diversifying the sources of funding for highway projects through concession of bankable  projects.   Fashola stated this while defending his Ministry’s 2017 budget proposal before the House of Representatives Committee on Works at the National Assembly recently. He said that the three sectors of the Ministry namely Power, Works and Housing and their parastatals proposed the sum of N564,211,583,496 for  Capital projects, Personnel and Overhead cost for the year 2017. The Capital Breakdown shows; Works stood at N283,138,551,643:00, while Parastatals stood at N28,349,090,000:00. For the Overhead cost proposal; Works is N554,538,906 while Parastatals is N17,169,056,316:00 and Personnel cost proposal stood at N10,426,114,809 for the three sectors of the Ministry namely Power, Works and Housing under the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), programme in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, (OAGF) The Minister further stated that in 2017, highway projects have been prioritized into six;  Saying that  the objective of doing this is to pay premium attention to projects at arterial highways and to record appreciable progress in order of importance of the projects. He added that the sum of N150,470,553,292:00 representing 62.22% was proposed to execute National Priority one projects in 2017; saying that the  National Priority Projects include the road projects on critical economic routes on the Federal Road network. These are highly trafficked North-South, East-West Routes, used for the distribution of goods and services across the country and major river crossing bridges. On the priority two, the total sum of N43,143,299,357:00 representing 17.84% was proposed to execute projects under this priority. These are projects being executed along the branch routes from the critical economic routes on the Federal Road Network that serve as links between the major Routes and Agricultural producing hubs, factories and mining deposits for the evacuation of agricultural produce , manufactured goods and raw materials to markets and Ports nationwide. Fashola further stated that, Priority three are the projects targeted to routes leading to the Nation’s Refineries, Petroleum Deports, Major Ports and Mineral producing areas in the Country meant to ease movement of petroleum products and imported goods from the Ports/Deports to other parts of the country. The sum of N25,508,708,266:00 representing 10.55% was proposed to execute various road projects under this category. Also, priority four are the  roads in key agricultural States producing cash crops like yam, rice, maize, cassava, fruits, adding that the objective is to boost agricultural production, ease movement of crops to markets. The sum of N8,900,000,000:00 was proposed for the projects under this category. The Minister further said that, priority five are the projects under Counterpart Funding, funded from Multi-literal Loans such as World bank and African Development Bank. The sum of N874,409,248 representing 0.36% was proposed while priority six are the on-going projects on the federal road network and road interventions in the Tertiary Institutions across the country. The sum of N12,943,028,838:00 representing 5.35% was proposed for other on-going projects in 2017. ...