TheCable

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

Addressing journalists after the council meeting (chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari) on Wednesday, Mohammad Abubakar, minister of agriculture and rural development, said an initial sum of N6 billion would be used to commence the construction of the new headquarters.

Abubakar said the proposed headquarters would be a 10-storey building and would be called “Agriculture House”.

“The memo we presented was for the construction of our corporate headquarters here in Abuja. Since the relocation of the ministry to Abuja over 30 years ago, we have not had a corporate headquarters,” he said.

“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.”

Abubakar said although the ministry had bought a building in Abuja in the past, it was inadequate for the services needed.

Hence, the building would be sold and the revenues will be added to a budgeted provision of N6 billion (2022 and 2023) to start the project, the minister said.

He added that the ministry will source for more funds to complete the project through intervention from the presidency and other sources.

Speaking on the rising cost of rice, Abubakar said a lot is being done to ensure availability of the product and to further cut down its price.

“There are 10 rice mills that are being constructed under a public-private partnership arrangement and the president has given us intervention to complete those mills and we will commission some of them before the end of this administration,” the minister said.