The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the full audit of Dana Air operations in the country.
The approval was coming almost a month after one of the aircraft’s emergency fell off on landing at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The Council meeting was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari and lasted for about six hours.
Also another aircraft belonging to the same Dana Airline, about two weeks later overshot the runway at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Rivers State.
Though no life was lost; the airport authority, FAAN, in its reaction said the incident was as a result of the bad weather situation and torrential rain at the time of landing.
Brief state house.correspondents on the oitcome of the meeting, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said, “A lot of quality time was spent discussing air safety. The government of Nigeria is very much concerned about safety and the life of Nigerians, this is following the recent air incidents minor as they were because they are no fatalities, the government did feel concern and the minister did the report to the council on steps that were taken following the last incident in Port Harcourt, Dana aircraft overshooting the runaway.
“As soon as that happened, a few seconds, a rescue team was there on the ground and few moments thereafter every passenger on board was evacuated, they was no harm to persons and this is something that should be celebrated.
“Within 24 hours an official investigation had commenced because investigators arrived in Port Harcourt and began work. One week after that a preliminary report was prepared and it was on this that the council was briefed.
“Consequently as announced by the aviation authorities, the engineer and Pilot of that particular aircraft got their licences both suspended and beyond that the government has ordered a complete audit of Dana airlines in terms of personel, operations, technical capacity.”
Shehu also said the Council also approved the augmentation of the contract sum for the rehabilitation of Burnt Marina Bridge and the Maintenance of Eko(Apobgbon) and Iddo bridges in Lagos, in Favour of Messrs. Buildwell Plant and Equipment Industries Limited, in the sum of N114,424,225.05 representing 12 percent of original contract sum, thereby revising the contract sum from N957,053,316.45 to N1,071,29,541.40 with additional completion period of six months.
Council also approved augmentation for Mangu Dam, in Plateau State to N7.66 billion from original cost of N5.66 billion, thereby incresing the total contract sum to N13.2 billion.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma, said he briefed Council on the most recent Gross Domestic Product and other related economic performance numbers as released last week by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
“You will recall that the NBS indicated that in the last quarter of 2017 the economy had continued its positive growth trajectory by growing by 1.92%. This is higher than the previous quarter when it grew by 1.40%. And higher still from the 2nd Quarter, when it grew by 0.72%.
“The numbers clearly show that the economy has fully exited recession. Council members were particularly pleased to note that this growth is very broad based with Agriculture growing at 4.23% up from 3.06% in the 3rd Quarter. Other sectors such as Transportation and storage, Electricity and gas production, Metal Ores, and Industry all grew.
“Particularly noteworthy were the growth recorded in Trade (2.07% and Services (o.10%) after six quarters of negative growth. Council members were also happy to note that overall the non-oil sector grew by 1.45%, its strongest since 2015. Inflation is also trending downwards moving down from 18.72% in January 2017 to 15.13% in January 2018.”
The Minister of Niger Delta, Usani Usani, also briefed Council on the activities of his ministry.
The Minister of Defence Mansur Dan-Ali, presented the status of the implementation of approved capital projects and achievements of the Ministry from 2015 to 2017.
Onyinye Nwachukwu, Abuja
