Who is fct minister

It is important to note that though Abuja has no navigable body of water, there are plans to develop a dry port, which would be linked to the closest seaports to Abuja, namely the inland waterways in Lokoja and Baru. What prospects are there for public-private partnerships PPPs in the development of the city? BELLO: Abuja initially depended almost entirely on federal allocations to carry out its development projects. More than 40 years on, there is the feeling that the Federal Capital Territory has come of age and needs to be weaned off the federal purse.

We are therefore tasked with carrying out infrastructure and utilities provision mostly through our own efforts, yet there is an urgent need to expand infrastructure and public utilities, as the city is bursting at its seams. According to the National Population Commission, Abuja is now the fourth-largest city in Nigeria and one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa.

These factors put a tremendous strain on existing facilities. Consequently, the need to develop more districts has become imperative. To achieve this, the contribution of the private sector is paramount. The administration is, therefore, committed to PPPs to develop these new districts. Choose from the options below to purchase print or digital editions of our Reports.

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Read next. How many active citizens would remember that the FCT budget was passed by the Senate on June 29, ? Has the FCT budget bill been signed into law? Doubtless, under the current Minister, Abuja as the 37th government is appearing in the media only as a place and not a government. The government of FCT is inconclusive. Most of the agencies of the government have no chief executives, or political heads, let alone boards of directors or trustees.

Sadly, the only government that is making noise for all the wrong reasons in the FCT is the Abuja Municipal Area Council AMAC , which is claiming and flaunting constitutional provisions for Local Government Councils to impose heavy tax yokes on the city-centre residents and business owners.

At the last count, AMAC has 23 tax subheads including the most recent one, the obnoxious electric generator tax. Every resident is being bombarded with the multiple and largely uncoordinated tax consultants and ferocious collectors. How can any injured residents or entrepreneurs complain to? The FCT is the most undemocratic municipal government in the world. There is no separate elected FCT Assembly. So, the FCT is an arm of the presidency. It is not my opinion.

That is a provision in our constitution. Here are the facts. The Secretariats are like the Ministries in the states and the heads function as if they were state commissioners. They are called Mandate Secretaries. The Secretariats ministries can therefore not be headed by civil servants.

Besides, there are a number of agencies under these Seven Secretaries. The challenge now is that since August when the new Cabinet was sworn in, the FCT Minister has no functional executive body and most of the agencies have no legal heads. Main reason: as I was saying, the file the FCT Minister submitted to the office of the President since late for the appointment of the seven Secretaries to manage the Mandate Secretariats and appointment of executive heads of agencies has not been treated.

Besides, all the agencies without heads too have since been headed by civil servants who have been acting and so cannot carry out executive functions. Even the Mandate Secretariats are said to be headed by civil servants drawn mostly from the Departments of Finance and Administration of different agencies.

These officers cannot function as political heads. Even if the FCT cabinet is formed tomorrow, the members have only one year and eight months to go instead of four years because of some executive inertia in the presidency. The Director retired since April and the acting successor also retired in October Since October, FCT authorities have failed to appoint a successor.

Before you ask me what my problem is even if there is no Minister for FCT, let me report to you that the FCT is a government and therefore should have a structure that can control how the Territory functions. There was a credible report in a medium published by a group of credible northerners at the weekend that despite ban, the FCT authorities announced early this year, open grazing thrives in FCT. Civil servants are always amazed about open grazing even around the Eagle Square in the heart of the Federal Secretariat complex in Abuja.

What is worse, the two FCT Committees in National Assembly and the only Senator representing FCT, have been quiet about this executive procrastination that has crippled operations in the years-old capital.