…As FAAC disburses N270.81bn in March
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa yesterday approved the sum of N68.6 billion for roads construction in the country.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, told State House Correspondents after a six-hours of the meeting that N64.108 billion was approved for additional work on 43km part of section one of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. The new approval will accommodate the changing factors occurring on the project and also to modify the bitumen for the road in order to withstand the heavy vehicles passing through it.
Fashola also disclosed that N4.57 billion was approved for Sumaila-Bauchi Road that links Kano State.
For his part, the Minister of State for Agriculture, Heneiken Lokpobiri, said the Council approved new 10 rice mills in the country at a cost of N10.7 billion.
The 10 states chosen for the mills location, he said, include Kebbi, Zamfara, Benue, Kogi, Bayelsa, Anambra, Kaduna, Ogun. The private sector will manage the 10 mills as each of the facilities will have capacity to produce 100 tonnes of rice per day.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, disclosed that N10 billion was approved to fight erosion in the country. He also said that $460 million was approved to facilitate usage of new buildings located at airports.
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed that the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursed the sum of N270.81 billion to the Federal Government in March. NBS posted the FAAC March 2018 disbursement statistics on its website.
According to the bureau, states received a total of N173.76 billion, while local governments received N130.91 billion. It stated that the sum of N647.39 billion was disbursed to the three tiers of government during the month under review.
According to the report, the amount disbursed comprised N557.29 billion from the Statutory Account, N89.45 billion from Valued Added Tax (VAT) and N654.49 million excess bank charges. The report, however, stated that the sum of N57.49 billion was shared by the oil producing states as 13 per cent derivation fund.