The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a contract of N2.8 billion for the installation of a digital web-based integrated system to aid prisons decongestion in Nigeria.
This was announced Wednesday by the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General the Federation, Abubakar Malami, while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting of the council. The meeting was chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Mr Malami said the contract is to improve the country’s justice system and decongest its prisons.
He said it will also assist stakeholders in the office of the Attorney-General, Nigeria Prisons Service, Nigeria Police as well as selected courts, to monitor in real-time, the progress of pending cases and movement of suspects between the courts and prisons. It will also allow the monitoring of those who have overstayed their prison terms as well as those wrongly imprisoned
Mr Malami said it would allow the AGF’s office to daily monitor prison inmates that should be taken to court and when; identify those that have stayed for the long awaiting trial; those whose cases have peculiar twists or other interventions that may be required; among other factors.
According to him, the new system will replace the practice of setting up government committees that usually embark on a tour of prisons to hear individual cases and identify inmates who deserve pardon or prerogative of mercy as part of efforts to decongest the prisons.
”The system would be operated by retrained staff of the Nigeria Prisons Service, while there would be systemic checks to substantiate the input or data of suspects put into the system to avoid compromise and other forms of corruption,” Mr Malami said.
The council also approved the contract of N291.73 million for the procurement of Memory Access Retrieval System to enhance aviation safety in the country.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, said: “safety and security is the main thrust of President Muhammadu Buhari government in aviation.”
He said the new system “will enhance the laboratory in accident investigation, it is a requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in the standard practices and applicable by local laws.”
He said investigations are ongoing as regards the fire incident at Sam Mbakwe Airport, Owerri, and that the report would be made public afterwards.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how fire gutted a part of the Sam Mbakwe International Cargo Airport, Owerri, Imo State, on Monday.
It was gathered that the fire incident occurred around 2 p.m.
The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained as at press time Monday evening.
N-Power
Also, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udoma, said FEC approved two contracts for the N-Power Build programme of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP), to impart skills on young non-graduates.
He said the N-Power Build programme is a non-graduate programme that seeks to deliver accelerated training and certificated skills to 75,000 Nigerians between the ages of 18-35 years old.
“The focus has so far been zone by zone. Today, the contract for the Southeast zone of Nigeria was awarded to Hitech Investment Ltd at the sum of N122.8 million. It covers all the states in the Southeast.”
He said the one for the North-west zone was awarded to Noble Ventures Limited and the amount is N145.1 million.
He said the N145.1 million covers all the states in the Northwest region of the country.
The goal of NPower programmes includes; to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country, bring about a system that would facilitate transferability of employability, entrepreneurial and technical skills, and bring solutions to ailing public service and Government diversification policy.
The minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Bello, on his part said the council approved N360 million for the procurement of water treatment and field materials for FCT Water Board.
He said the council also approved N286 million for the purchase of 500 units of firemen suits for FCT Fire Service for emergency management.
