Aso Villa Reads for 18/11/2021
Every day, we bring you the best stories the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
The Federal Executive Council, presided over by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Wednesday approved contracts worth N27.4bn for projects in the Ministry of Works and Housing, and the Federal Capital Territory. The council also approved the establishment of the Federal University of Health Sciences and the raising of a bill for the enactment of the Civil Defense, Corrections, Fire, Immigration Services Board. Also approved was the payment of N895m to Pearl Consultants for the supervision of a Rivers road project.[Punch]
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has onboarded over 488,000 consumer wallets and about 78,000 merchant wallets, with downloads coming from over 160 countries. The statistics, which was obtained from the apex bank by The Guardian at the weekend indicated that almost 17,000 transactions amounting to over N62 million with the average transaction being about N3,800 each were recorded as well.The CBN said statistics had shown that the adoption of eNaira had been excellent.[Guardian]
Mr Simon Harry, the Statistician-General of the Federation and Head of National Bureau of Statistics, has declared that the nation’s economy grew by 4.03 per cent in the Third Quarter of 2021. He made the announcement on Thursday in Abuja at a media conference on the present state of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).[Vanguard]
Amidst consistent underperformance since this year, the Federal Government has indicated that it was rebuilding the upstream sector to ramp up crude oil production by 100 percent to 3.0 million barrels per day, up from average 1.5 million since this year. The government also indicated its commitment to the realisation of 40 billion barrels oil reserves, despite missing the December 2020 date for the targeted reserve.[Vanguard]
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has listed seven critical sectors the federal government will use to achieve the targets set in the new National Development Plan. Osinbajo, who spoke on Monday, said the economy is set for effective growth and job creation with a renewed focus on digital economy, significant value addition in agriculture and other sectors including oil and gas, while boosting productivity generally. [Leadership]
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says all hands must be on deck to eliminate limitations to product quality and technical barriers, while improving market acceptability of made-in-Nigeria products. He said improved quality was particularly important as Nigeria sought to expand its exports to the rest of Africa in the African Continental Free Trade Area, and to the rest of the world.[Daily Times]
