The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the development of Phase II of the FESTAC Town in Lagos under a public-private partnership arrangement as it received 2012 performance report by the Ministry of Interior.
Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, made the disclosure in company of his counterparts in Housing, Ms. Ama Pepple and Interior, Abba Moro at a media briefing on the outcome of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan at the State House, Abuja on Wednesday, March 13.
Maku stated that the Phase II FESTAC project proposed by Pepple and accepted by the council, involves the development of the remaining 1,126 hectares of land out of the 2,000 hectares acquired for 'FESTAC 77' with projected revenue of N25.7 billion to the Federal Government.
Pepple noted that only a portion of the land initially acquired was developed while the remaining was abandoned due to lack of funds, adding that this prompted the ministry to move to develop the phase II through the new arrangement.
Announcing Council's approval for FESTAC Phase II, Pepple explained that the area involved is 1,126 hectares with a potential to create at least 7000 plots when it is completely reclaimed and sand filled as it is swampy.
She elucidated that the concession of the project, granted to four companies, will span over 30-year period with three years moratorium, added that the sum of N150m will also accrue to the federal government as ground rent annually once it takes-off.
The council she stated further, approved that the remaining portion of land should be developed after reclamation is done by the New FESTAC Property Development Company (NFPDC) in order to fast track the project, which is a way of developing the economy without dipping hands into government purse.
Other benefits of the project include the provision of jobs to Nigerians adding that the 7,000 plots are to be carved out of the land and equipped with infrastructure facilities such as police stations, schools, shopping malls and others.
Speaking on the encroachment on the area envisaged for future development, Pepple said government is aware of the situation but was yet to know the extent of such, pledging that when the developers move in, the extent of the encroachment will be determined.
She attributed the dilapidation of FESTAC Phase 1 to the refusal of its occupiers to pay the mandatory maintenance fee as stipulated in their letter of offer adding that the ministry discovered this after holding a stakeholders meeting and emphasised that another meeting was being proposed to iron out this issue.
She revealed that the Ministry discovered that there was problem with water supply in the area where all the four boreholes were spoilt noting that two have been repaired, but the people don't want to pay the maintenance fee.
Presenting his ministry's 2012 performance report to the Council Moro gave report on the new visa regime, issuance of passports to Nigerians and foreigners, performance of prison service, immigration service, fire service, National Security Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) and matters of border control.
Moro listed the challenges of his ministry to include new partnership to promote PPP in service delivery by departments and agencies under his purview, obsolete laws guiding the operations of the prisons and immigration services as well as the teething problem of prisons congestion occasioned by the subsisting nature of crime and punishment in the country.
He noted that many prisoners, out of the total of 38,000, are awaiting trial because there is no access to the nature of their crimes adding that it is the realisation of this, that a bill seeking to properly categorise crimes and punishments to be meted out to offenders has been sent to the National Assembly.
The ministry according to him is looking at proposing punishments that will not entail incarceration of offenders, reduce prisons congestion, tackle recidivism and fashion further ways of rehabilitating prisoners, some of who are now enrolled in the Open University while some are writing WAEC and NECO to upgrade their educational standards.
He also briefed the Council on expansion works done in prisons with a view to ameliorate congestion, introduction of an e-prison system to curb excessive jail breaks by taking biometrics of prisoners and embarking on electronic panoptic in the surveillance of prison walls.
Via: Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria
That is the nest approval for this year 2013 so far. They've done the right thing I must say. It makes a lot of sense