Damilola Oyedele
7 August 2008
Abuja — Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the sum of N314.32million for the proposed databank of National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) in Abuja.
It also approved the sum of N286.5million for building of Senate and Administrative Complex of University of Calabar in the next 12 months.
The FEC meeting, chaired by President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, agreed that the NASRDA building would be built before the databank and would be completed within 62 weeks, the cost of which has been included in the 2008 budget, while the rest will be accommodated in next year's budget.
Minister of Information and Communications, John Odey, who briefed newsmen after the meeting, said the intention is to develop an indigenous competence for appropriate software and hardware, to serve Nigeria's space technology needs and ambitions.
For the Senate building, Odey said N133.34 million of the amount is already provided for in this year's budget, while the balance of N153.18 million is to be taken care of in the 2009 budget.
FEC also deliberated on the National Debt Management Framework for 2008 to 2011, and directed that it should be focused on guidelines for Sustainable External Debt, Domestic, Sub-national Debt Management and the Federal Government's On-Lending/ Guarantee.
In another development, Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, has dismissed reports that his office "surreptitiously authored and endorsed a document which sought to whittle down Niger Delta and NDDC powers to disburse funds and make them more accountable to the people of the region."
A statement issued by the VP's Media Assistant, Mr Ima Niboro, read, "we take strong exception to import of the remarks in the story which seem to suggest that the Vice President indicted the governors and NDDC for "not being accountableí to the people."
Niboro said Jonathan, t having been a Niger Delta governor, knows that governors are accountable to the people through the state legislatures, and is aware of the needs of the people.
He, therefore, "fully empathises with the governors and people, not only of the Niger Delta, but the entire nation, in the quest to bring development, peace and prosperity to our peoples," he added.
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