Aso Villa Reads for 28/01/2020
Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
The Federal Government has said it would not be distracted by the rating of the Transparency International, which ranked Nigeria low in its latest international Corruption Perception index. The federal government also said it was not fighting corruption to impress any organisation including Transparency International. The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, gave the government position on Wednesday in London when he featured on respective interview session with some international media organisations. Reacting to the TI rating, the minister said that the position by the organisation that Nigeria is doing worse in fighting corruption is incorrect and the government is unhappy about the development. “In any event, we are not fighting corruption because we want to impress any organisation. “We are fighting corruption because we believed that without fighting the menace, the much-sought development will not happen and we have results to show for fighting corruption. Punch reports.
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has promised to send to the Senate, a fresh list of nominees for the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission. Buhari said he put on hold the inauguration of the new board of the NDDC to enable the interim management committee of the agency to conclude its current forensic auditing, The PUNCH reports. The President, in a letter to the red chamber and read at plenary by the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said his action would ensure that the IMC was not distracted while carrying out its assignment.
According to Punch, the Federal Ministry of Water Resources said it would promote handwashing culture in public places to halt the spread of Lassa fever outbreak in the country. The Director, Water Quality Control and Sanitation in the ministry, Emmanuel Awe, made this known in Abuja. Awe said that with the recent outbreak of Lassa fever in parts of the country, the ministry has started advocacy among its partners to see how the promotion of handwashing culture with soap, water or ash in public places would be achieved. Awe said that frequent washing of hands at critical times such as this was key to fighting the spread of diseases. “We are going to start an awareness campaign on promoting handwashing with soap or ash and water as we all know our hands have a way of passing germs into our body. “The ministry will see how the gains recorded during the last Ebola outbreak will be harnessed, how we emphasised handwashing culture at all times.”
The Federal Government is planning a 10-year successor plan to replace the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. The Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, said this while receiving the Japanese Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Nigeria, Yutaka Kikuta, in his office. He said a new economic blueprint for the country was imperative following the winding down of the ERGP this year. Agba, according to a statement from the ministry, said the Federal Government had made tremendous progress in its effort to reposition the economy of the country. He said, “The National Development Plan will be a 10-year plan for Nigerians. It will be broken down into two five-year medium-term plans, from which the annual budgets would be drawn.” Punch reports.
Nigeria will close a $2.5bn financing agreement with Chinese lenders by the start of the second quarter of 2020 to fund the single biggest gas pipeline project in the country’s history, after months of holding talks with China on financing a project seen as being central to expanding gas output in the West African nation. On completion of the 614km Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) natural gas pipeline, new gas-to-power plants will push power generation capacity to more than 10,000MW, in a country of nearly 200mn people that has faced perennial electricity shortages for decades. Africa’s biggest economy struggles with power output, generating less than 7,000MW. Three new captive gas-fired plants, to be located in Abuja, Kaduna and Kano, are expected to deliver 3,600MW of power. The pipeline will also supply 2bn ft³/d (56mn ft³/d) of gas, in the short term to domestic customers, “which is quite significant,” according to Mele Kyari, group managing director of the state-owned oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Daily Focus reported.
