Abuja — The federal government yesterday began to count the blessings of the amnesty programme it recently granted militants operating in the restive Niger Delta region.

According to government, the relative stability and peace following the amnesty has resulted in increase in the nation's crude oil production from 1.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) to 1.7 mbpd. This, according to the Minister of Petroleum Affairs, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman, is because the warring forces have ceased hostilities in the area.

Addressing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council, (FEC) meeting in Abuja yesterday, Lukman said new investments in the sector have also increased oil production capacity to 3.4 mbpd and 700,000 cubic metres of condensate.

The total crude oil reserve is of 37 billion barrels, while the country's target is 40 billion barrels in the near future.

But the minister added that Nigeria cannot exceed the ceiling of 1.7 million production quota pegged by the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) during its meeting in Oran, Algeria in December last year.

He also said the much-awaited planned full deregulation of the petroleum sector will take off in "the next one or two months," pending the conclusion of vital concessions by all stakeholders who are aware of the development.

On the gas situation which is expected to power the proposed 6,000 megawatts of electricity by the end of December 2009, he said "we have enough gas to power more than 6,000 MW but the pipelines are vandalised and the processing plants are compromised. That is the problem".

The FEC meeting was devoted to a review of the performances of some ministries in their implementation of the 2009 budget.

Ministers of Health, Education, Inferior and the FCT equally took turns to give a summary of the budget appraisals of their respective ministries.

On his part, Health Minister, Babatunde Osotimehin, said that his ministry had recorded 60 per cent implementation while plans were on to provide free malaria treatment for all Nigerians, as well as give every household free insecticide-treated bed nets by 2010.

"The objective is to reduce by 50 per cent mortality occasioned by malaria," said the minister, as he announced that 14 out of the nation's 52 teaching hospitals had been upgraded while seven were currently undergoing upgrading.

For the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Minister, Adamu Aliero, said 84 per cent of the national priority budget and 89.9 per cent of the FCT statutory budget had been implemented.

The Minister of the Interior, Mustapha Shettima, disclosed that out of the N11.5 billion allocated to his ministry, N10.8 billion had been committed to sundry projects, although only N8.42 billion has actually been released. The projects include upgrade of prisons, rehabilitation on inmates, and better immigration control measures in conjunction with state governments.