FEC okays N6bn for construction of new corporate headquarters for agric ministry

By Business A.M. 

The federal executive council (FEC) has approved the sum of N6 billion for the construction of the corporate headquarters of the ministry of agriculture and rural development.

Mahammad Abubakar,minister of agriculture and rural development, made the disclosure while addressing journalists after the council meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Abubakar said the approval followed a memo presented by FEC, adding that the proposed headquarters would be a 10-storey building and would be called “Agriculture House”.

Speaking further, he said, “ Since the relocation of the ministry to Abuja over 30 years ago, we have not had a corporate headquarters. We are currently using an office of the federal capital territory (FCT) administration which is just about three floors and cannot accommodate the entire ministry. We have about four departments which are outside the main ministry.

“So, the FCT administration has allocated a plot to us in the cadastral zone, totalling about 1.84 hectares at a very strategic place for the construction of a 10-storey building which we will call Agriculture House.”

According to Abubakar, the ministry had purchased a building in Abuja some years back but it later turned out not to be adequate for its services. To this end, he said the building would  be sold and the proceeds  added to a budgetary provisions (2022 and 2023) of the sum of N6 billion to commence the project.

The minister added that the ministry would source for more funds through interventions from the presidency and other sources to complete the project.