Aso Villa Reads for Mon. 23/11/2020
Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
The current recession, which the Nigerian economy recently slid into, will be short-lived, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said. Ahmed said this on Monday at the ongoing 26th Nigerian Economic Summit organised by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning. She said the country would emerge from the recession in the fourth quarter of this year or by the first quarter of 2021. [Punch]
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, has received the first batch of three training aircraft for the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State. Sirika, who disclosed this on his Twitter handle on Sunday, added that there was no better aviation safety than having well trained and proficient aviators. According to him, training will now be more efficient, faster and cheaper. [Punch]
As the Buhari administration continues to roll out schemes aimed at bringing relief to businesses and individuals across different sectors, a cross section of beneficiaries of the Payroll Support scheme are excited at the receipt of N30,000 and N50,000 alerts of salaries under the MSMEs Survival Fund, a component under the Economic Sustainability Plan, ESP. According to the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President, Mr. Laolu Akande, so far, 101,567 employees from 16,250 businesses have received their first monthly payment from the Survival Fund’s Payroll Support Scheme. [Vanguard]
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas, Tony Attah, has said that at least 55 per cent of the scope of work on the newly signed Train 7 project of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, NLNG will be domesticated in Nigeria to create an additional 50,000 jobs in the country. Attah said the move was to demonstrate to the world that Nigerian companies’ capacity and personnel in the oil and gas sector had improved to handle high end technical projects following the efforts of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board. The MD said the Train 7 project would create 12,000 direct jobs and 40,000 indirect jobs. On his part, NCDMB ES. Wabote said that the Federal Government was finalising plans to site a 500 barrel per day capacity modular refinery in Imo state to boost local content in the South-East. [Punch]
The Federal Government has secured $2m each for the 36 states of the federation to develop their land information system through a World Bank funded programme. Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonaya Onu, disclosed this in Abuja at the Geoinformation Society of Nigeria 2020 Annual Conference. The minister noted that the effort would help generate about 50,000 employments for youths in the various states. [Punch]
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Power, Mr Chinyeaka Ohaa, has said the Federal Government will continue to support the growth of local meter manufacturers in the country. Ohaa noted that the Federal Government had launched an initiative to accelerate meter rollout in the power sector, saying the Central Bank of Nigeria had decided to fund the provision of six million meters. He said the government remained committed to encouraging local meter manufacturing. [Punch]
Julius Berger Plc has reassured the use of highest international quality materials and timely completion of second Niger Bridge despite the challenges being faced , just as President Muhammadu Buhari has endorsed the progress of work being progressively achieved at the Second Niger Bridge saying that, “the project is on course irrespective of initial teething problems that occasioned some loss of time.” The Honourable Minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, who represented the President, spoke in Asaba weekend at the inspection/town hall meeting on the landmark priority project stating that 2022 remains the completion period. [Vanguard]
