THE Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved different contacts totalling N62.04bn at its weekly meeting presided over by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

The approved projects cut across the Ministry of Works and Housing, Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory and Ministry of Water Resources.

One of such projects is the augmentation of the contract sum for Ajebandele-Shagamu Section of the Benin-Ore-Ajebandele Road.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, told State House correspondents at the end of the meeting that the redesigning of the road’s shoulders and pavement necessitated the increase in contract sum.

He said, “The redesigning of the shoulders and pavement provision necessitated a revised estimated total cost of N22.879bn to take the contract from original sum of N71.6bn to N92.5bn.

“The stretch involved is 99km from Km162 to 261. Council approved that review of total estimated cost in favour of Messers RCC construction firm currently working there.”

The minister said the council also approved the contract for the Akwanga-Keffi-Makurdi highway.

Describing it as a sub-contract within the contract, Fashola said the contract was for the construction of a nine-way underground cable and telecommunication facility dock over the length of 255km in the sum of N46.25bn.

He added that the council approved a contract for an automation process for the issuance of Certificate of Occupancy in respect of Federal Government’s lands.

The contract, he said, was in the sum of N976,037,330 in favour of IQ Systems with completion period of 10 months.

He also mentioned the construction of 4×20 meters span bridge at Km18 along Langtang-Wase Road in Plateau State for N2.867bn.

The Minister of the FCT, Mohammed Bello, said the council approved all the five memoranda presented by ministry, including the review of the N19.5bn Southern Parkway project.

He listed the approved projects to include contract for the provision of access road to open up sections of Institute and Research District, Abuja, in the cost of N3,462,440,823.88; the construction of access road and car park for Abuja light rail stations, Kagini Station, in the cost of N1,830,392,696.00; upward review of the contract sum for the construction of Southern Parkway from N16,234,553,335 to N35.7bn.

The Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, said the council approved two memoranda presented by his ministry.

The first one, according to him, is the Fika-Gadaka Water Project in Yobe State with a revised estimated total cost of N555.15m while the second is the revision of the consultancy contract for the supervision of Gere Earth Dam in Katsina with augmentation of N310m.