The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the sum of N1.4bn for the award of contract for the design of the Department of Petroleum Resources head office in Abuja.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents after FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Kachikwu said that the contract was awarded to Messers Arteck Practice Limited to design a 12-floor building at a plot which had already been allocated by the FCT.

According to the minister, DPR is currently based in Lagos and operates as the regulatory and supervisory arm of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and is also instrumental in terms of income generation.

He said that the design was to start the process of moving the agency to Abuja.

On whether the amount was not too much for design of a building, Kachikwu said that the contract sum was the lowest of the bids.

“The highest bid was about N3bn; the total projected potential cost for the building when it is done is about N35bn.

“So if you look at that as a percentage of the work, it is absolutely insignificant. In international terms, it is very justifiable, it is less than two per cent.

“The FCT did mention in our deliberation that because of the new zoning policies, the previous plan which was to build a car park of another five floors along with the 12 floors has to be changed a little bit because they are taking possession of additional green area that were assigned to them.

“So they will build a lot of parking institutes within the building. So, I think because of the amount of work to be done and in line with international practice, it is quite frankly very reasonable.’’

The minister said funding for the design would come out of DPR itself, and not out of federal budget.