By Harry Awurumibe, Editor, Abuja Bureau
Respite has come the way of the Abuja residents as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Minister Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, has declared the On-Street Parking scheme, otherwise known as the ‘Park-and-Pay’ scheme, to be illegal, citing fraud in the contract agreement between the managing contractors and the FCT.
The Minister made this statement on Wednesday during a media briefing to mark his first year in office as the FCT Minister.
Recall that the scheme, initially introduced in 2014, was reintroduced in 2023 after the FCT administration signed a whopping N908.3 billion agreement with concessionaires NAJEC Limited and Messrs Automaten Technik Bauman Nigeria Limited, with an estimated N26.93 billion revenue for a 10-year term each.
The then Permanent Secretary of the FCT, Olusade Adesola, who signed the agreement on behalf of the FCT in August 2023, had stated that the reintroduction of the scheme was with the consent of the six area councils and that the scheme aimed to entrench orderliness and organisation in the city.
However, Wike said he was unaware of the reintroduced scheme, noting that the agreement had stipulated an 80 per cent payback to the contractors, with only 20 per cent of the total to be remitted to the administration.
He added that he had since directed that a statement be released to inform residents that the scheme was illegal, emphasising that people should not be made to pay for parking in front of their businesses or places of residence.
“I called the Transport Secretariat and the Mandate Secretary. I asked who introduced this Park and Pay scheme and what it meant. Who collects the money? It turned out there were agreements between the (Transport) Secretariat and some individuals who claimed to be consultants. Then I asked, ‘Consultants take 80 per cent, and the government takes 20 per cent?’
“Where is this 20 per cent being paid to the government? I instructed that a statement be drafted. I called the Director of Press and said, ‘Send out a statement informing the public that there is no such thing as Park and Pay. It is illegal. That’s what I’m trying to convey,’” he said.
The Minister disclosed that contracts such as the Park and Pay scheme were arranged in collusion with secretariats within the administration, stating that he was striving to reduce corruption in the system to the bare minimum.
“The point I’m making is that, no matter how you shuffle things, you still have civil servants working with you. It is not easy, but you try as much as possible to reduce it to the bare minimum. But we must continue to fight hard,” he added.
