FG okays N1.4bn to design DPR headquarters

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

The Federal Government has approved a whopping N1.4 billion for the design of headquarters of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) at a plot which has already been allocated to DPR by the Federal a Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

The approval was made by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday at the Aso Villa, Abuja.

Minister of State Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu who disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents at the end of the meeting, said that the design is a 12th Floor building.

Kachikwu said that the contract was awarded to Messers Arteck Practice Limited to design the 12-floor building.

They are currently based in Lagos and are the regulatory and supervisory arm of the ministry of petroleum, and is instrumental in terms of income generation, he said.

When asked if that amount was not too much for the design of a building; the minister argued that amongst the contractors that bided for the contract the N1.4 billion was the lowest.

He explained further that the highest bid was about N3 billion.

Kachikwu said: “The total projected potential cost for the building when it is done is about N35 billion.

So if you look at that as a percentage of the work, it is absolutely insignificant, in international terms it is very very justifiable, it is less than two per cent.

“The FCT did mention in our deliberation that because of the new zoning policies, the previous plan which was to build a car park of another five floors along with the 12 floors have to be changed a little bit because they are taking possession of additional green area that was assigned to them.

“So they will build a lot of parking institute within the building. I think because of the amount of work to be done and in line with international practice, it is quite frankly very reasonable.

“Part of the programmes we have pursued in the ministry is how to get a lot of our parastatals to become independent and self financially generating agency and so get out of the federal budget.

NSNB has done that, DPR is the one to do that next. So a lot of funding for this development is going to come out of DPR itself not out of federal budgeting”, he said.