The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday in Abuja approved N11 billion for the purchase of 22 firefighting vehicles for the Federal Fire Service and construction of technology building for the Nigeria Immigration Service. The Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, disclosed this when he briefed State House correspondents on the outcome of the meeting of the FEC.
The meeting was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. He said that N3.9 billion of the amount was approved for the procurement of the 22 firefighting vehicles while the remaining N7.1 billion was for the construction of the NIS technology building.
“In 2016, we procured 21 firefighting vehicles, in 2017 the procurement was for 22 firefighting trucks and in 2018, it is a repeat procurement of what we did last year. “The vehicles will cost N3, 952, 076, 338.35 for those fire trucks, water tankers and other related vehicles.
“The government is doing everything possible to ensure those fire incidents are contained and also controlled,’’ he said. He said: “We are just starting these, we have identified areas that have high fire hazards and we will continue to do this.’’ Dambazau also announced that the council approved N7.1 billion for the building of the communication centre for the Nigeria Immigration Service.
According to him, the centre will help harness the data of the service, which is presently domiciled with various service providers.
“The Centre, when operational, will help bring together all the data used by the Nigeria Immigration Service under one roof.
“For now we have these data domiciled with the service providers and they are in piecemeal.
“So, at the proposed centre to be sighted within the headquarters of the Service, the data will be brought together so that the Immigration can be able to interface with other institutions that have to do with internal security, border management and so on, like the Customs Service,” he said.
(NAN)
