ABUJA — MINISTER of the Federal
Capital Territory Administration,
FCTA, Senator Bala Mohammed,
yesterday, told Senators that
the Park and Pay policy recently introduced in the nation’s capital
where owners of vehicles park
and pay was not backed by law. The FCT recently made it
mandatory for commuters who
use the roads especially in places
like in Garki, Wuse, Maitama,
Asokoro to pay N50 for 30
minutes, N100 for one hour and more depending on the hours one
must have parked his or her
vehicle. After a serious session,
yesterday, with the Senator
Smart Adeyemi, PDP, Kogi West-led
Senate Committee on the FCT to
defend the 2013 budget, the FCT
Minister, however, dared the lawmakers, boasting that no law
can stop him from demolishing 31
estates and Mpape in the FCT.
When asked if there was any law
backing the introduction of park
and pay policy in the FCT, the
minister said: “The parking
regime, we inherited it and we
saw that it is noble and we implemented it. We are treating it
administratively. “There is no institutional
structure at all. It is just a
responsibility of the road
department to make sure that all
these practices where the city is
converted into a car park. We have designated car parks here
and there, people park anyhow
such that the corridors are
impeded by people who do not
want to follow our transport
resolutions and that is why it was done by my predecessor and
I saw that it is a good thing. “Even the Okada, we don’t have a
law but we are treating it
administratively because
security is everybody’s business.
If we allow all these things to
happen, certainly we will end up in trouble and we just have to
take pre-emptive measures. I
have a law on demolishing. The law I said I don’t have is the
one the chairman asked on the
issue of parking. But for
demolition, I have the law and I
don’t even have to interfere with
Development Control Law under the Land Use Act.” The FCT Minister noted that
N50,000,000,000 budget ceiling
for the FCT by the Budget Office
of the Federation as 2013
National Priority budget will not
be enough to provide the needed infrastructure for the city. He
said 2012 budget based on
analysis, stands at 99 per cent,
adding that total payment made
up till date stands at N31.7 billion
while the balance of N496 million is under process. In the budget breakdown, the
FCT will next year build a
cultural centre and Millennium
Tower for N2 billion, just as
besides the N1 billion earmarked
for construction of Vice President Namadi Sambo’s
residence in Aso Drive, it will now
be completed for N2 billion. On demolition, Mohammed said: ‘’I
want to ,with all respect and
humility , tell the Chairman that
this is not true. Since I came, I am
not aware of any conversion
that we have done and we have the coordinator of Abuja
Metropolitan Management
Council. ‘’People are free to think anyhow
out of mischief and treachery
and they will be ringing issues to
the highest level of government
up to the Senate. I too, I have
had occasion to discuss to in the Senate that there are some of
this information that are not
true and as a Senate I will ask
you to investigate and find out. ‘’If there are hills being bulldozed
maybe they are part of the
development of the Master Plan
and it is not true that all hills are
not being developed. If you go to
some countries they are all on hills. So it is not every hill that
should be left out. Some hills are
meant to be removed and we
have some areas which we call
buffer zones and we have to
bulldoze some buildings. I must say with all humility at the
risk of sounding impudent that
there is some lot of practice of
impunity prevalent in our city
where people take it for
granted. ‘’Some of those estates that you
said we have not given notice, we
can give you evidence when you
come when right from the
foundation we have been telling
the developer ‘don’t do it. This place is designed. It is not your
own plot. You have not even
obtained Development Control
approval. Yet they will go ahead
and develop and you expect us
to leave them to practice that impunity thinking that will go
through the corrupt system and
get it regularize. ‘’Certainly we will not allow the
business of government to be
extricated by this type of
unwholesome attitude. And it is
with all humility that we do
demolition. It is not because we like it. It is not the moral issue but
the moral baggage is also on the
society to know that
government is just a service to
them and if they continue to
abuse it certainly we have to take the remedial measures in
terms of enforcement and we do
enforcement after persuasion. ‘’Not just going with the big
hammer to start killing the fly
but we normally give all the
information and in particular
cases of the expense we will give
you all the information that you require. We are in court. We don’t
want to pre-empt the outcome
of the court but certainly we will
not allow the huge investment
made by the federal government
for the last 35 years to the tune of N3 or N4trillion to be
destroyed by the wishful
interest of some few individuals
who are just using the media and
using some offices of
government to blackmail us. we are not doing it for ourselves, we
are doing it out of absolute
responsibility. ‘’Development control is just a
government office. We don’t have
power of enforcement. We use
the police sometimes we use the
military but people don’t listen
and like you said we will want more capacity to be built. In the
Mass Housing area, when it was
started, it was about four to
five district and we did not have
the capacity for oversight but
now we are really building with the support that we are getting
from you. You can see in our
statutory budget all this things
captured so that we can have
more in terms of enforcement.
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/12/50bn-wont-be-enough-for-infrastructure-fct-minister/

God is watching us all.....keep it up