The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the complete reconstruction of the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano highway.

With the approval, the government changed the scope of work on the highway from the ongoing renovation to complete reconstruction.

It therefore increased the project cost from N155bn, earlier approved for renovation, to N797.2bn reconstruction cost.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the weekly meeting of the council presided over by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Fashola said, “I presented on behalf of the Ministry of Works and Housing, one memorandum and one report. The memo was with respect to the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano highway, which was to change the scope of works from rehabilitation previously awarded because many parts of the pavement had deteriorated, to full reconstruction of two lanes on both sides.

“The council considered and approved the request for that change of scope and the incidental cost consequence; changing the existing contract from N155bn to N797.236bn to provide for full reconstruction of the main carriage way, trailer parks, way bridges, toll stations and additional side lanes in the built-up areas across the FCT, Niger, Kaduna and Kano states, which are all served by the road and this was approved by council for the same contractor.”

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The minister said the job would be done in phases with the first phase being the 74km Kaduna-Zaria section, which is expected to delivered in the fourth quarter of 2022.

He added that the second phase, which is the 137Km Zaria-Kano section, will be delivered in the first quarter of 2023, while the last phase, the Abuja-Kaduna section should be completed in the second quarter of 2023.

The minister also disclosed that some roads that were recently rehabilitated would soon be handed over.

He listed them to include Benin-Asaba, Abuja-Lokoja, Kano-Katsina, Onitsha-Aba, Sagamu-Benin, Kano-Maiduguri, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Ilorin-Jebba and Lagos-Badagry roads.

Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, told journalists that the council also approved N10.4bn for the procurement of fire-fighting vehicles and equipment for the Federal Fire Service.

The approval, he said, covered the supply of 44 fire-fighting engines, supply of 15 water tankers, 15 rapid intervention fire engines and supply of 20 basic life support ambulances.

“So in all, we are talking about 79 firefighting equipment and support vehicles,” the minister explained.

Aregbesola said the council also approved N353.2m for the deployment of an integrated real-time data repository equipment for the Nigeria Immigration Service headquarters, Abuja.

He said the purpose was to ensure that the service had all its data on one platform for effective management.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouk, said the council approved a contract for the design, development, deployment, and management of National Social Investment Management System for the National Social Investment Programme.

She explained, “This system is going to be used to take care of the issues of N-Power Programme, N-SIP Programme, National Cash Transfer Programme, as well as National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme.

“We are starting with N-Power, which is the one before us. It is very immediate. Afterwards, we will key other clusters of the National Social Investment Programme into this platform. The council has graciously approved and we should go ahead.

“The contract is in the sum of N2,123,035,499.96 inclusive of 7.5 per cent VAT with a completion period of 24 months.”