By BALARABE ALKASSIM
The The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike has berated area councils for not discharging their responsibilities..READ FULL ARTICLE HERE>>>>
He expressed his disappointment with their performance when he appeared before the joint House Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Area Councils chaired by Rep. Mukhtar Betara and Rep. Fred Agbedi respectively.
According to him, the area councils have fell short.of the expectations of residents despite having funds from their monthly federal allocations and the 10% of IGR accruing to the FCT.
Wike said that, he will no longer tolerate their lackluster attitude to development as the nation’s capital needs accelerated development as such, the area councils must take the development in their domains as a priority.
He said, “So, I have told them, if they continue to constitute this, I will seize their 10% IGR and I will tell them what to do. I will. Because it’s not normal. I was chairman of council. And the governor then, Dr Peter Odili called us and say look, the city is dirty. Who will they call? Will they call area councils?
“They were owing teachers, they were owing NULGE. Teachers refused to go back to school. FCT teachers are on strike. They are not our teachers. They are area councils teachers. NULGE are not our staff. They are area council staff. Nobody talks about that. What they are interested in is the FCT.
“So, what we did was to say, look, its embarrassing for teachers not to go to school and our children are at home. We called them. How much are you owing the teachers? You are owing the N600 million. Fine. You pay 60%, we pay 40%. So that our teachers can go back to school. For you to know that it was not.our responsibility. Then our children will be at school.
So, you can’t be collecting 10% of our IGR and then you will not allow us to even collect the IGR and you are collecting 10%. We are seeing the money you have at the end of every month. If we have 27 billion, 10% of that is N2.7 billion set aside for them to share”.
Similarly, the minister defended the decision of taking a N500 billion loan for specific projects in the 2024 budget.
Wike said, the FCT ministry is taking a N500 billion loan for specific projects which he said will reduce the huge deduction of its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by banks monthly which was affecting its operations.
He said, “You talk about our revenue. When you said N500 billion, how do we intend to pay? We are paying every year, N110 billion. Every month, the banks collect about N8 to N10 billion of our IGR. Infact as an ISPO.Right?
“We have calculated the interest rates. That’s how we came to about N8 to N10 billion at 24%. But, if we have N500 billion and the bank is collecting N10 billion every month. It’s a five years loan, we’ll still have something balance that we can still work on with.
“This N500 billion, what have we done? We are attaching it to specific projects. So, we.know that we are completing these projects from so so time to so so time. If we depend on the IGR, mind you, when I came on board the IGR is about N16 billion. Today, it is in the region of N25 billion.
“Now, when a company knows that, there is money that he is going to be paid, the company goes on doing his job. But, if we don’t take that loan, if we all depend on the IGR, what we’ll do is to be sharing, to this company N500 million, to this company N1 billion,, to this one, at the end of the day, we have achieved nothing “.
In his remark, the chairman, House.Committee on FCT, Rep. Mukhtar Betara who commended the FCT Minister for his vision for the capital city and its area councils as well as the roads infrastructure and other developmental projects being undertaken said that, the area councils must wake.up to their responsibilities.
He advised his counterpart, the Chairman, House Committee on Area Councils, Rep. Fred Agbedi to scrutinise the activities of the area councils and take appropriate oversight measures to compel them to discharge their responsibilities.
On his part, Rep. Agbedi commended the Minister for taking his projects to the area councils and giving them a new look through infrastructural development.
He promised to take action as required by law through effective oversight of all the area councils as the core mandate of his Committee.READ FULL ARTICLE HERE>>>>
