Mass housing: Kriston Lally accuses NLC of scamming workers

Hints that the project had gone awry emerged last week when the NLC issued a press statement assuring “genuine subscribers” of the safety of their money after a newspaper reported that the project was engulfed in controversy.NLC accused Kriston Lally of opening a separate bank account to collect money from subscribers after both parties agreed […]

Hints that the project had gone awry emerged last week when the NLC issued a press statement assuring “genuine subscribers” of the safety of their money after a newspaper reported that the project was engulfed in controversy.
NLC accused Kriston Lally of opening a separate bank account to collect money from subscribers after both parties agreed to stop collection.
But the Group Managing Director of the company Alhaji Mustapha Umar Madawaki, reacting in a press statement said that the contract obligated both parties to play different roles to actualise the project.
“There are two articles in the contract, that is  p.1.10 and p. 5.1 which clearly lay out the responsibility and obligation of the NLC to provide the land on which the developer, Kriston Lally was to, or is to build houses for the Nigerian workers. The NLC has to date not provided land to the project upon which Kriston Lally can build,” Madawaki said.
He added that the NLC could not provide the land which prompted his company to take action by making deposits for land in Karsana, Apo and Gosa all in Abuja but its efforts were thwarted by the NLC.
According to him, his company stopped collection of deposits October last year when ordered by the NLC but same NLC pressured it to accept deposits from some people.
“Due to pressures from so many people and in particular  from the leadership of NLC, especially Mr Rotimi, the NLC accountant, and one ‘Honourable’ NLC staff, whose name evades me,  it was decided to allow new clients to pay deposits into our operation account, which was in existence since 2012.”
Speaking on the fate of the project, he said “further cooperation with the NLC may be difficult. They have failed and their failure has led to almost collapse of the project…housing will not be delivered as planned, unless there is an immediate intervention by government, in the provision of land, or allow us to use the land already acquired for the project.”
He added that depositors will get their money back, stressing that about 200 out of the 3270 depositors have already collected their deposits.
“We are not going to allow NLC to transfer subscriber’s money to another developer with a different philosophy and objective, whose costs are not worker friendly, and may not even have the requisite funding, whether local or international to complete the project.”