THE Federal Executive Council rose from its meeting on Wednesday with a decision that, henceforth, payment for consultancy services on capital projects would be tied to the execution of the projects, thereby putting a stop to the practice of paying consultants fully even before the completion of projects.The FEC, which met in the Council Chambers of the State House with President Goodluck Jonathan presiding, took the decision after considering concerns raised by stakeholders over the unusually high cost of capital projects in the country.The situation, which makes the execution of capital projects in Nigeria to cost much more than similar projects in neighbouring countries, had been identified as one of the factors scaring away investors from the country.In line with the decision, the FEC set up a committee to develop a template to bring down the cost of capital projects.The template is expected to bring the cost of capital projects at par with what obtains in other parts of the world.The committee is led by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and the Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement, Mr. Emeka Eze.The Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, who addressed journalists after the meeting, explained that following the report of the Presidential Projects Assessment Committee, the government had resolved that, henceforth, the cost of projects and funding plans for the duration of their execution would be properly outlined from the outset to ensure smooth funding and prevent the prevailing practice of augmentation of contract sums when funding had lapsed for the projects.Maku said, Last year, Mr. President, after a lot of concern had been raised on the cost of projects in the public sector, said that something should be done, and today in the council meeting, the issue came up and Mr. President is concerned still that in spite of all the measures taken so far, the government still has not arrived at what we consider to be a universally appropriate valuation of projects in the public sector in Nigeria.Mr. President tabled this issue, which was discussed frankly at the council meeting. The discussion was further informed by the recent Bunu report of the Presidential Projects Assessment Committee, which we are still receiving.He said there were still concerns about the actual and exact cost of projects comparative to surrounding countries and other places in the world where similar projects were being executed.Maku said, Mr. President insisted that something must be done further and we all agreed that one way of cutting the cost of governance and ensuring Nigerians get proper value for all the projects we execute in the country was to work out a further template that will guide all of us in terms of valuing the projects that we execute.
Click here to read full news..
