The Federal Government on Wednesday ordered complete audit of Dana airline.
The airline had recently been involved in non-fatal accidents in the country, with one of its plane over shooting the runway in Port Harcourt and another one had its door failing off while taxiing at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International airport, Abuja.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, said the audit will cover the personnel and assets of Dana airline.
He was with the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Uguru Usani.
Garba Shehu said “A lot of quality time was spent discussing air safety. The government of Nigeria is very much concerned about safety and the life of Nigerians; this is following the recent air incidents.
“Minor as they were because there were no fatalities, the government did feel concern and the Minister did the report to the Council on steps that were taken following the last incident in Port Harcourt, Dana aircraft overshooting the runaway. As soon as that happened, a few seconds, a rescue team was there on the ground and few moments thereafter every passenger on board was evacuated. There was no harm to persons and this is something that should be celebrated.
“Within 24 hours an official investigation had commenced because investigators arrived in Port Harcourt and began work. One week after that a preliminary report was prepared and it was about this that the Council was briefed.
“Consequently as announced by the aviation authorities, the engineer and pilot of that particular aircraft got their licences suspended and beyond that the government has ordered a complete audit of Dana airlines in terms of personnel, operations, and technical capacity,” he said.
He also disclosed that the Council has approved the augmentation of the contract sum for the rehabilitation of Burnt Marina Bridge and the Maintenance of Eko (Apobgbon) and Iddo bridges in Lagos State, in Favour of Messrs. Buildwell Plant and Equipment Industries Limited, in the sum of N114, 424,225.05.
The amount, he said, represented 12 percent of the original contract sum.
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He said that the contract sum was reviewed from N957, 053,316.45 to N1, 071, 29,541.40 with additional completion period of six months.
The Council, he said, also approved augmentation for Mangu Dam, in Plateau State to N7.66 billion from original cost of N5.66 billion increasing the total contract sum to N13.2 billion.
Dan-Ali said that his Ministry presented to the Council the status of the implementation of approved capital projects and achievements of the Ministry of Defence from 2015 to 2017.
The presentation, he said, covered the strategic policies of the Ministry, including to build and maintain flexible, compact and highly trained Armed forces capable of defending the territorial integrity of the nation.
He said “The brief also covers the serviceability of the military platforms, operational readiness, future projections and the way forward. During the period under review the Ministry received a timely consideration and approval of its capital projects and the Armed Forces in general.
“This no doubt resulted to the successes recorded so far in the fight against terrorists and other security challenges in the country. It is pertinent to state that prior to assumption of office by President Muhammadu Buhari, most of the military platforms and hardware were old, worn out, non-functional and obsolete.
“However, it is gratifying to mention that this administration have made tremendous efforts in the provision of funds for the acquisition of modern military hardware to meet up with security challenges. High priority was also placed on renovation of existing barracks facilities to cater for the welfare of the members of the Armed Forces.
“Some of the facilities renovated were neglected for over forty years. Between 2015-2017 a total of 18 rehabilitation works have been carried out in various barracks across the six geo political zones by the Ministry. Similarly Defence Headquarters also approved 36 capital projects within the period.
“The Nigerian Army embarked on 68 approved projects. Nigerian Navy implemented 31 projects while a total number of 64 projects were also implemented by the Nigerian Air force,” he said.
According to him, he also gave breakdown of capital projects implementation stage by other agencies of the Nigerian Defence Academy.
“The Armed Forces Command and Staff College implemented 23 capital projects Similarly, the National Defence College got approval for 69 projects some of which were already completed while others are on-going. The Defence space Administration has so far implemented 32 capital projects from 2015-2017. Defence Intelligence Agency has 11 projects approved and most of them are already completed or at various stage of completion The Defence Industries Corporation in Kaduna got approval for 38 projects, some already completed while paucity of funds is affecting the completion of others The Armed Forces Resettlement Centre, oshodi had 38 capital projects approved, most of the projects are already completed It is worthy to mention that since independence no projects of such magnitude and number were achieved in less than 3 years,” he said.
He also said that the presentation also proposed a way forward for the implementation of a comprehensive reform of the entire defence management system with a view of promoting effectiveness, transparency, accountability and self-reliance.
According to him, the role of the Presidency/Armed Forces Council and the National Assembly were identified as paramount in the implementation of the defence sector reforms.
He said that the Defence Headquarters will also improve on training of personnel, improvement on the serviceability rate of equipment by conducting regular audits of existing assets.
Udoma said that he briefed the Council on the NBS recent report.
He said “I presented a briefing to the Federal Executive Council today on the most recent Gross Domestic Product and other related economic performance numbers as released last week by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
“You will recall that it indicated that in the last quarter of 2017 the economy had continued its positive growth trajectory by growing by 1.92%. This is higher than the previous quarter when it grew by 1.40%. And higher still from the 2nd Quarter, when it grew by 0.72%.
“The numbers clearly show that the economy has fully exited recession. Council members were particularly pleased to note that this growth is very broad based with Agriculture growing at 4.23% up from 3.06% in the 3rd Quarter. Other sectors such as Transportation and storage, Electricity and gas production, Metal Ores, and Industry all grew, particularly noteworthy were the growth recorded in Trade (2.07% and Services (o.10%) after six quarters of negative growth.
“Council members were also happy to note that overall the non-oil sector grew by 1.45%, it’s strongest since 2015. Inflation is also trending downwards moving down from 18.72% in January 2017 to 15.13% in January 2018. Council members were also happy to see the increasing private sector confidence in the ERGP, and other policies and programmes of the Buhari administration, as evidenced by the increasing capital inflows.
“Capital inflows in 2017 were US$12,228 million, a growth of 138.6% over the total inflow in 2016 of US$5,124 million. This has been a factor in the build-up of our foreign reserves which have grown from US$23.81 billion in September 2016 to almost US$42 billion.
“Council members however agreed that whilst these positive results are most encouraging, particularly in the light of where we were in the last few years, the current growth rate is still rather modest and we have to continue to work even harder to achieve the goals of the ERGP of diversifying the economy and achieving our growth targets of 3.5% this year, and 7% by 2020.
“And, of course one of the ways we are intensifying implementation of the ERGP are the ERGP focus labs which will be launched next week Tuesday, 13th March, by Mr President,” he stated.
Usani Uguru, said the Council approved the design of section five of East – West Road meant to link Oron in Akwa Ibom to Calabar in Cross River State.
