FEC Approves $5.7bn For 3,050MW Mambilla Electricity Project

President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday presided over the Federal Executive Council meeting, for the first time since his return from medical leave.

It witnessed the award of  contract for the kick off of a land mark project, the Mambilla Hydro power project, which has been in the pipelines for about 45 years.

The council also mandated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to take over the leadership of the Federal Government’s negotiation team with the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities.

Statehouse Correspondent Tai Amodu reports that the Mambilla Hydro power project has been in the works since 1972, with successive administrations lacking the political will to commission such a project into being.

But  the Federal Cabinet meeting approval was given for the engineering and turnkey maintenance contract to a joint venture of Chinese Civil Engineering firms at a cost of over 5 billion dollars.

85 percent of the funding is to come from the Chinese Eximbank with the Nigerian Government providing 15 percent counterpart funding.

Also approved at the meeting was the inclusion and domestication of the boiler and pressure vessels regulation in the Factories Act,which will standardize in line with world best practices, how industrial machines are installed, how workers are trained and how factories are run.

Tasked on why the National Minimum Wage Committee was yet to be fully constituted, the Labour Minister disclosed that while the Government on its part had chosen its own members in the Committee, the Organised Private Sector was yet to send the names of its own nominees.