2016 Capital Budget implementation: Minister tours FAAN facilities

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has visited Murtala Muhammad International Airport, Lagos to inspect some projects under the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria.
This was contained in a statement issued by Salisu Haiba, the Assistant Director in charge of Information in the ministry, on Wednesday in Abuja.
The minister said that the tour of the facilities was part of the ongoing monitoring of the implementation of the 2016 Capital Projects.
Ahmed said: “The monitoring exercise, which was designed by the Ministry’s Quarterly Budget Performance Monitoring of 2016 Capital Budget, will culminate in the production of the quarterly report.
“It will culminate in the production of the quarterly report by the Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the ministry.”
According to Ahmed, the objectives of the monitoring exercise include; to assess the level of fund disbursement and utilisation by Ministries Departments and Agencies as at the third quarter of 2016.
She said: “The objective is to examine status of projects implementation and their performance levels, and also assess the value for money for the levels of project implementation
“Other objectives are assessing the impact of executed projects on target beneficiaries and communities; and also Identify challenges and lessons learnt in the projects implementation.”
The minister, however, expressed satisfaction over the work done so far by FAAN at the Murtala Muhammad International Airport.
She was pleased with some of the projects, especially the arrival lounge, Airport’s Power House, upgrade of the Airport’s terminal building and the asphalt retracing works.
Ahmed commended the level of completion so far and emphasised on the importance the current administration attached to development of infrastructure in the country.
The minister described development of infrastructure as the bed rock to speeding up development in any nation.
She said that more than any other previous administrations in Nigeria, 30 per cent of the total sum of the 2016 budget was allocated to capital with infrastructural provision as a priority by the current administration under President Muhammadu Buhari.
Meanwhile, some of the projects visited by the minister included Upgrade and Rehabilitation of MMIA Terminal Building; Expansion and Upgrade of MMIA Wing D and E Fingers (phase 2 -3) and the Refurbishing.
Others were Upgrading of MMIA Passengers Processing Area, rehabilitation and asphalt retracing at GAT Apron at Lagos, reconstruction and Upgrade of GAT Protocol at MMIA as well as provision of Transit Lounge at MMIA.