FEC approves N236m for completion of Katsina dam awarded when Buhari was PTF chairman

The federal executive council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the sum of N236 million for the completion of Sabke Irrigation Dam in Katsina state.

Addressing state house correspondents after the council’s weekly meeting in Abuja, Suleiman Adamu, minister of water resources, said the contract for the dam was initially awarded in 1997.

He said it was then re-awarded in 2009 after it was abandoned, but would be completed by the current administration.

“One memo from my ministry was considered today as part of our efforts to improve the acreage for irrigation, we have been committing ourselves to completing many of the irrigation projects we inherited in the past two years,” he said.

“One of such is the Sabke irrigation project. This is a project that started as far back as 1997 during the PTF days but was abandoned and then re-awarded in 2009, completed 95 percent by 2012 and again abandoned.”

The Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) was inaugurated by the Abacha administration in March 1995, with President Muhammadu Buhari appointed to oversee its affairs.

Adamu said when the current administration resumed: “I commissioned a technical audit of all the ongoing project in the ministry and because of the status of that project having attained 95 percent completion, it became a priority project because it was a low hanging fruit for us to complete.

“Unfortunately, when the contractor was mobilised to site, we found out that a lot of component of the irrigation project had been vandalized and for us to be able to put that project into effective use, we now have to do a lot of rehabilitation works and we, therefore, brought a memo seeking council to give us an augmentation of about N280 million for us the able to complete the work 100 percent and make it fit for purpose and Council considered and approved this memo.”