Amid rising infrastructure decay, FCT councils spend over N9.2bn in 6 months

We have been transparent, prudent with our resources – Chairmen   By Hussein Yahaya, Baba Martins & Abubakar Sadiq Isah   Between January and June this year, the six area councils in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have received the sum of N9,293,186,316.83 as allocation from the federal government. The councils are Abuja Municipal Area […]

• We have been transparent, prudent with our resources – Chairmen

 

By Hussein Yahaya, Baba Martins & Abubakar Sadiq Isah

 

Between January and June this year, the six area councils in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have received the sum of N9,293,186,316.83 as allocation from the federal government.

The councils are Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Gwagwalada, Kuje, Bwari, Abaji and Kwali.

The monthly allocations from January to June of this year as shared and published by the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) show that AMAC got the highest share of N1,812,824,324.62 followed by Gwagwalada, N1,762,189,508.83; Abaji, N1,497,645,081.29; Kuje, N1,430,982,480.44; Kwali, N1,420,503,508.7 and Bwari, N1,369,041,412.95 within the period.

City News reports that the above allocation is aside from the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by each of the area councils. AMAC is said to generate much from such IGR.

But a cross-section of residents of the territory believe the councils authorities are not doing much to improve infrastructural facilities, especially at the satellite towns.

 Some of the residents are of the view that the allocations have not been put to proper use. They said amenities are either nonexistent or the few available are in a state of disrepair.

The problems, they said, range from dilapidated township roads, including those leading to the gates of some area council secretariats, lack of potable water, deteriorating health centres and primary schools, especially those in the rural communities, among others.

City News visited Chukuku, a community in Kuje Area Council, where a resident, Haruna Mande, said many of the amenities in the area were not working.

He said access to potable water is a serious challenge as pipe-borne water is non-existent while boreholes provided by some lawmakers representing the community have since parked up.

He said many of the residents have given up on the area council authority, as it does nothing meaningful on complaints brought to them.

Haruna said, “many times you will hear of a lot of money given to the area councils; at other times you will also hear large amounts budgeted for by them but there will be nothing on the ground to show for them.  

“Look around the community, can anyone say money has been spent to uplift the lives of the people? People in this area buy water for their daily needs. There is no pipe-borne water, even some of the boreholes provided by Senator Aduda are no longer working.

“I think we need more measures in place to check how these people spend our money. This money, at least on paper, is supposed to belong to all of us, but you can hardly understand what is happening.”

On his part, Alhassan Stephen, questioned what the chairmen of the area councils and even the minister of the Federal Capital Territory were doing with the monies accruing to them.

He said the chairmen and all the politicians should be made to give an account of the monies they get as allocation before any new allocation is given to them.  

Stephen said, “What exactly are they doing with the money, we hear every month that so and so amount of money has been given to the councils, but when you check, you will not see anything on the ground. You can see the roads are in a deplorable state.

“I think what we need to ask the area councils is what they actually do with the funds; they need to give us an account before they get the next funding.

“But then these are politicians, they behave as if they are the owners of the country. Anything you say will not matter to them. But sincerely they can do better with this money that we are hearing. Unless there are some other things they are doing that we are not aware.”

At Bwari Area Council, there are divergent views on the performance of the incumbent chairman, John Gabaya. While some residents are commending him for fixing the market road as well as that of Sabon-gari area of Bwari town, others said he has not done anything to improve health care facilities and schools in the rural communities.

A resident of Bwari, Dr. Kolawole Jimoh, said “If you go to some of these villages, getting water during the dry season is always a problem, I have not seen the council authorities doing anything to address some of these problems, not even providing boreholes in some of the villages, yet they get large amounts of money monthly.

“Look at the road that links Bwari Area Council secretariat and confirm what am saying, these people are just terrible,” he said.

The situation is worst in AMAC, a resident Ayuba Isah, claimed, adding that apart from the monthly allocation they share, AMAC generates a lot of revenue internally but nothing to show for it, at least to his knowledge.

“Don’t judge AMAC by what you see in the city centre, some of the infrastructures are done by the FCTA. If you want to see AMAC go to the villages, you will know that they have nothing to show for the amounts they are getting,’’ he said.

Reacting, the chairman of the FCT chapter of the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON), Alhaji Adamu Mustapha, said the chairmen of the six area councils had been transparent in utilization of monthly allocations to the councils.

Adamu, who is also the chairman of the Gwagwalada Area Council, said the complaints in some quarters that the present council chairmen were yet to meet up with the expectations of the people in infrastructures despite huge resources at their disposal were unfair to them. 

He said the council chairmen have been making judicious use of the monthly resources at their disposal to provide viable infrastructure that will impact on the lives of people of the territory.

“For me as an individual, I like criticism but I must tell you that the six area council chairmen has performed creditably well in making judicious use of resources at our disposal to see that we meet up with the infrastructural demand of our people,” he said.

He added “Really, you can’t expect everyone to appreciate the good things you are doing as a leader, but I must tell you that there are good numbers of people that are appreciating what we are doing,” he added.

On the council chairmen’s demand for the review of revenue sharing formula, the FCT ALGON leader said the review of revenue sharing formula was supposed to have been done every five years, which he said has not been done for over 20 years.

“If you observed, the infrastructure on ground is not competing with the rising population in the FCT, and that calls for urgent review of revenue sharing formula across the six area councils,” he said.