Minister of humanitarian affairs, disaster management and social development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has said the headquarters of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will be ready in the next two weeks.
The minister stated this when she visited the site of the NEMA headquarters in Abuja, which has been under renovation since 2019.
Farouq said she visited the site to inspect the ongoing work and ensure that the contactors deliver on time so that the headquarters would be commissioned before the expiration of this tenure on May 29, 2023.
The minister said she had given the contractors adequate support to meet the target.
Also, the director-general of NEMA, Mustapha Ahmed, expressed satisfaction with the level of work done on the site.
Ahmed said “from the look of things, the minister is very satisfied with the ongoing renovation and I believe we will move into this building in two to four weeks’ time.
“The contractors said two weeks, they will deliver the building, but we will say two to four weeks due to human factors.
“This is a project that started in 2019. I came on board in 2021. Two of the buildings were done under my watch. There were no funds available. The contractors were only mobilised and the work was not going anywhere. There is a need that the project that the administration started should also be commissioned by it. That is why there is a need for her to assess what we have really done. From her view, she seems to be very impressed by what we have done here.
“This people have done a very good job. They have produced a world class emergency agency. We have a clinic and structures to accommodate everybody. The office we are presently renting, you can see that some people are presently in containers. Some people don’t even have desks. So, there was a need for this renovation and by the end of the month, we will get back here.
“When we have a world agency in one place, we will definitely increase our productivity. All our departments are supposed to be in one place, but they are presently scattered. If you were looking for director search and rescue, it would take many minutes to get him. But now, it will just be a one-minute walk. But now, things will be done rapidly. Though the engineers gave us two weeks, we will be hoping for four weeks for everything to be in place. Give or take, in four weeks, everything will be completed,” he said.
