Barr. Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi Flags-off Renovation of Federal Ministry of Environment Hall to be Handled by ACReSAL, a World Bank Project

The Minister of Environment, Barr. Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi has officially flaggs-off the renovation of Ministry’s Conference Hall to give it a new look for hosting of various National/ International and bilateral meetings between the Ministry and Development Partners.

The Minister of Environment, Barr. Mohammed Hassan Abdullahi, while flagging-off the project charged the contractor handling the project to ensure standard and professionalism in project implementation and to deliver it as scheduled.

Barr. Abdullahi stated that the renovation of the Ministry’s conference hall is being implemented by the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) Project and the activity is captured under the project component C, Institutional Support and Strengthening to lead implementing Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The Minister said that ACReSAL is a six-year Word Bank assisted project that seeks to address environmental challenges in the nineteen (19) Northern states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the project is being implemented by the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources.

The Minister disclosed that the Project Coordinators held a Workshop on Procurement and work plan in August last year in Lagos and planned to support the Ministry, considering the state of its conference hall and other ministry’s engagements with both local and international organizations.

At the Lagos workshop the project also noted the need to strengthen the Ministry ’s social media platforms to ensure that the general public have access to all information about the ministry’s activities and units.

The Minister expressed his appreciation to the World Bank and ACReSAL project over the commencement of the renovation work.

In his remarks, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Habitat, Hon. Johnson Oghuma,stated that the upgrade of the ministry of Environment conference hall is timely and justified.

Hon. Johnson revealed that he has visited some other ministries’ conference halls and based on the Ministry of environment exposure, relationship with both local and international communities, development partners, renovation work is highly important to upgrade the Hall to global standard.

Hon. Johnson said ”the House Committee on Environment has confidence in the Minister and is not surprised that he has identified this project, not just the physical innovation but the digital component of the activity”

Earlier, the National Project Coordinator of the ACReSAL Project, Mr. Abdulhamid Umar, in his opening remarks noted that the initiative started last year during the ACReSAL project annual work and procurement plan in Lagos, where the need to have the ministry’s conference hall uplifted for hosting of local and international meetings as part of the project support to the ministry was discussed and approved.

He said that the ACReSAL project is happy that under the leadership of the Minister, who also doubles as the Chairman, Federal Steering Committee of the ACReSAL project, the renovation work has been approved for implementation and would be completed within Eight (8) weeks.

He commended the ministry for its support to ACReSAL Project.