The Federal Executive Council, presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, approved a total of N1.749tn contracts during its weekly meetings in 2013, The Punch has learnt.

The total cost consisted of N1.526tn in local currency and foreign components of €18.759m, $1.404bn and £2.461m.

Although the contracts were awarded for 17 federal ministries as well as the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the Presidency, State House and the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Ministry of Transport had the biggest share of contracts worth N566.297bn during the period.

These details are contained in a document, ‘Summary of Awards Against Capital Allocations in 2013 Budget’, prepared by the Bureau of Public Procurement, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent on Monday.

The FEC, which is the highest decision making organ of the Federal Government, meets every Wednesday to take decisions on national issues and award contracts.

While the President presides over the council, the Vice President, ministers, the SGF, the Head of Service of the Federation, the National Security Adviser, Chief of Staff to the President, Special Advisers to the President and a few other presidential aides are members.

A total of 15 contracts were awarded for the Ministry of Transport during the period.

They ranged from the various ones connected with ports development to those of construction of rail lines across the country.

The foreign components of the contracts, included £2.1m, $1.3bn and €2m.

According to the document, the Ministry of Works had the second highest cost of contracts approved with the sum of N397.372bn.

The ministry got a total of 13 contracts that included road construction and rehabilitation as well as bridge projects.

The Ministry of the Federal Capital Territory came third on the list with 17 contracts totalling N211.526bn.

The fourth on the list is the Office of the SGF with 12 contracts, totalling N75bn.

Others are Ministry of Power-N72.3bn; Water Resources-N54.666bn; Aviation-N36.979bn; Finance-N27.760bn; and Niger Delta-N26.510bn.

The remaining are Agriculture and Rural Developement-N1.548bn; Education-N8.681bn; Justice-N692.335m; Lands-N39.281m; Police-N20.653bn; Trade and Investment -N7bn; Women Affairs-N775.587m; DefenceN594.918m; Petroleum-N6.837bn; Presidency-N3.828bn; State House-N3.157bn; and INEC- N4.512bn.

The Ministry of Power’s contracts had foreign components of Euro 16.7m; $28.2m and £353,791; while those of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources had foreign component of $21.488m.

According to the document, the BPP saved the nation N95.797bn in the process of carrying out its duties on the contract sums presented to it by Ministries, Departments and Agencies by reducing the sums from a total of N1.852tn to N1.749tn.