Reps summon FCT Minister over infrastructural decay in Abuja

The House of Representatives has summoned the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Muhamad Bello to appear before it and address lawmakers on the infrastructural decay in the nation’s capital.

This resolution was sequel to the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Deputy Minority Leader, Toby Okechukwu at resumed plenary of the House on Tuesday.

Presenting the motion, Okechukwu expressed grave concern that Abuja has never been as unsafe as it is today due, among others, to the influx of bandits and other criminals, lack of modern security infrastructures in the city centre and the satellite towns, and non-maintenance of available ones, including CCTV installations and as little as streetlights.

He expressed concern over the poor city management bedevilling the FCT resulting in obvious disorderliness and widespread deterioration as well as the indiscriminate allocation of lands without a matching infrastructural development.

Read also: Reps ask FG to provide details of 73,000 foreign refugees

The deputy minority leader said he was: “Concerned about the acute lack of infrastructure in the satellite towns and the resort by tax-paying citizens to self-help in Territory that should ordinarily model rural development in Nigeria. Concerned about the allocation of lands in Green Areas in clear breach of the FCT Master Plan.

“Also concerned about the worsening poor waste management practice in the FCT, including dearth and poor maintenance of waste treatment plants, despite the Minister of State, FCT’s claim of N8 billion annual expenditure on waste management in the FCT. Worried about the status of the Gurara Water Transfer Project”.

Okechukwu also expressed worry about the far-reaching consequences of absence of a full complement of the FCTA’s administrative structures for about two years since the appointment of the FCT Minister, including the non-appointment of Mandate Secretaries, equivalents of Commissioners at state level, to form the FCT Executive Council.