The Federal Government on Wednesday disclosed that it has saved over N4.5 trillion from high profile cases prosecuted by the Ministry of Justice between 2015 and 2017.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami briefed State House correspondents at the end of about seven hours Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He was with the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Bello.
According to Malami, his Ministry presented its score card to Council in the last two and a half years.
He said “In respect of Federal Ministry of Justice what was presented to the Council today is the score card from 2015 to 2017
“We presented a score card as to cases both civil, criminal that were prosecuted by the Federal Ministry of Justice and their implications as to savings that were done for the government commencing from 2015 to the present time.
“Fundamentally arising from the cases that were conducted by the Federal ministry of Justice, the Ministry has succeeded in saving the government around N4.5 trillion relating to the claims that were presented in respect of these cases which were indeed conducted and concluded.” he
Continuing, the Minister said “The Federal Government has put in place a committee saddled with the responsibilities of coming up with policies and strategies that will ease off congestion of prisons.
“Over 70 percent of the inmates are awaiting trials there are sizeable number that couldn’t afford to pay limited fine that have been imposed by them arriving from their convictions.
“There are those awaiting trials that have never seen the court room for over five years and above and indeed there are multiple legislation that are before the national assembly that are intended to support the decongestion of prison formation process.” he said
He said that another area the Ministry presented its score card was the ongoing prosecution of Boko Haram cases.
On Boko Haram suspected terrorists ongoing trial, he said that the total number of convictions so far is 255 and those discharged is 737.
He said “We presented a position as to the number of cases that were prosecuted, number of convictions that were procured and the number of discharges that were made relating to the cases and then made a presentation as to the road maps for the continuation of the process.
“There were other presentations that were made particularly as it relates to plea bargain. There are a lot of pending criminal cases in respect of the accused persons standing trials, who made offers for plea bargain.
“Again there are high profile cases that we made our score card and gave an insight as to their respective positions.
“A presentation was made relating to national prosecution team as it relates to the cases they are expected to prosecute.” he said
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi also disclosed that FEC has approved the construction of the Ibadan – Kaduna rail lines at the cost of $6.7 billion.
The project, he said, is expected to be completed in three years.
According to him, the contract for the Kaduna to Kano aspect of the rail line was awarded last year.
The Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, also briefed on the progress made based on the recently approved executive order, the national strategy for competitiveness and the entire science and technology innovation road map.
As part of the score card of the Ministry in the past two and half years, he presented new biscuits being produced in conjunction with Nasco Food.
He said “High nutrient density products developed and proposed for inclusion in the current Nigerian School Feeding program will provide at least a third of the desired major macro and micro nutrients requirement stipulated by the World Health organization, Food and Nutrition Board.
“Additionally, the products will be produced by NASCO Foods Limited, Jos that have state-of-the-art processing equipment with vast experience in Food processing, Food Safety and quality for production and supply chain nationwide.
“The developed nutritious products have been tested using Nasco Food processing facilities in Jos and have been found to be technically and economically viable.
“The pupils in the schools in Jos and Lagos where the sensory evaluation and consumer acceptability studies were done showed strong likeness for the products and are ready to consume the products if including in the school feeding program.” he said
On his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said that the major projects which were rolled out by his ministry, including the citizens diplomacy program, desk to desk review initiatives and the economic diplomacy innovation, are recording successes.
He also gave score card of his Ministry in the past two and half years to the Council.
He listed the special interventions by the Buhari’s administration for the ministry, foreign missions and embassies to include N16.3 billion, N933 million, N7 billion, $32 million and $28 million.
According to him, all the interventions were made as the President decided that he would not entertain sending Nigerians abroad without the necessary funding.
He said “Special intervention fund to rescue many embassies in several countries of the world. First was in 2016 when the Naira was fluctuating terribly and of course the dollars to our embassies were too low to sustain them.
“We received initially N16.3 billion, and was successfully distributed to all embassies. The second one was N933 million for renovations and other debts released in October, 2017.
“The third was $32 million that were released for critically distressed 65 missions that were in serious debts and crisis. This was approved in November 2017 and we are in the process of distributing to the embassies around the world another one, $28 million and is the process of also being distributed and finally for ministry headquarters, the sum of N7 billion was made.” he said
He added “A lot of the debts and the crisis in our embassies and missions around the world have been building over the last 10 years and Mr. President decided that he will no longer accept the situation where we are sending Nigerians out to represent this country and not given them the resources to be able to carry out their tasks. Hence he made provisions and directed that these funds should be released to them.
“So the situation is still not perfect but this has come in very handily and of course in the interest of transparency we wanted to show how these funds had been disbursed.” he stated
The Minister of FCT disclosed that FEC approved N1.9 billion for road reconstruction of Clinton Drive and N273 million for water treatment chemicals.
