Abuja — The Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday approved N71 billion contract for road rehabilitation across the six geo-political zones and contract for the procurement of 116 units of Peugeot brand of cars for the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from the Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria Limited.

However, while N21billion of the road contract had already been captured in the 2009 budget, the balance N50Billion was charged against the 2010 Appropriation Bill presently before the National Assembly.

Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili while briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting in Abuja said the approval was given in view of the important roles the NSC play in revenue generation and to enable it meet the target set for it.

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Mansur Mukhtar ,who presented the memo before council noted that "the inadequacy of functional operational vehicles, to a large extent, has served as a constraint to the revenue generation capacities of the NCS and also poses potential threat to the realization of not only the 2009 revenue target, but to subsequent ones."

He said the request became necessary in order to curb the influx of smuggled goods into the country. Similarly, council also approved the award of contract for the purchase of arms and ammunitions for the Nigerian Customs Service. The contract was awarded to the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON).