ABUJA- NIPOST would need N3.6 billion to complete its corporate headquarters in Abuja, the Postmaster-General of the Federation, Mallam Ibrahim Mori Baba, has said in Abuja.
“We have not received any money under the capital budget in the last five years, Baba said.
He said that the initial cost estimate of the building, located in the Maitama area of the FCT, was N800m.
“The Corporate headquarters was supposed to have been completed long time ago at the cost of N800m.
“Today, if we have to complete it and put everything that is required to make it functional, we need N3.6b,” he said.
“I will be lying to you to tell you the time it would be completed because we have made cases on that and we have been told that it has to wait till some other time,” he said.
Baba noted that the non-completion of the project had impacted negatively on the operations of the post.
According to him, some of the key offices of NIPOST including the payroll, monitoring and evaluation departments, are still located in Lagos, because of lack of adequate space in Abuja .
He, however, expressed the hope that things would eventually improve for NIPOST as soon as it was granted a full commercial status.
“If we are granted full commercial status today, we will boost profit by 2009 because we will not be bothering about street delivery of letters.
“For now, our services are still socially oriented,” he said.
On the NIPOST recreational centre located at the Central Business District Area of Abuja, which is not yet operational, Baba said that it was not part of the corporate entity of NIPOST.
“It is a social and sports club and it is being handled by an association. I have also asked the same questions of when it will be ready for us to see the good things that it was established for,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Post Master-General of the Federation, Mallam Ibrahim Mori Baba, said today in Abuja that NIPOST would partner with the News Agency of Nigeria in the latter’s efforts to move journalism practice to greater heights.
He made the declaration during a courtesy visit to NAN where he said that the two organisations could cooperate in the areas of ICT and the use of multimedia infrastructures.
Baba said that as agencies established to provide unique services, NAN and NIPOST shared certain similar needs in information technology and should cooperate to exploit available facilities.
“We in NIPOST are certain that cooperation between the two agencies will be for the benefit of Nigeria and Nigerians,’’ Baba said.
Responding, NAN Managing Director, Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, said that NAN had a unique role as “the greatest media content provider in the country’’.
“With offices spread across the country, we are also in a unique position to provide an ambience of peace, harmony and tranquility,’’ Oyo said.
She said that since NIPOST also had offices spread across the country, cooperation between the two organisations would be of mutual benefit.
Oyo added also that since the two organizations depended largely on the use of the ICT cooperation in that area and in some other areas would position the two organizations to serve Nigeria better.
She implored NIPOST management to take advantage of the presence of NAN within and outside Nigeria to propagate its services.
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