SAN FRANCISCO October 05, (THEWILL) – The Federal Executive Council (FEC) in its meeting on Wednesday approved the purchase of 320 prisons’ operational vehicles at a cost of N3.5 billion.
This was revealed by the Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, and the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, as they briefed State House correspondents at the end of the meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Dambazzau said the vehicles are to convey inmates to courts in order to speed up trial, adding that awaiting trial inmates constituted 70 per cent of the 65,000 prison population.
“In our efforts to strengthen criminal justice system and also contribute towards decongesting the system, we presented a memo for the procurement of 320 operational vehicles for the prison service at the cost of N3.5 billion,” he said.
“This procurement is from local manufacturers, assemblies and vendors within Nigeria and the effort is to follow through government policy in ensuring that most of the procurement of equipment and such vehicles are done locally. That will also provide opportunity for job creation and things like that.”
They also revealed that FEC has also approved the purchase of three transformers of 150 MVA‎ to be installed in power sub-stations at Kumbotso (Kano), Shiroro (Niger), and Oshogbo (Osun) at a cost of N1 billion.
Also at the briefing were the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu.
Story by David Oputah
