By Daniel Tyokua
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) Department of Department Control has identified key hiccups impeding infrastructure development in the nation’s capital, Abuja.
Briefing journalists at the weekend, on activities of the department of development Control in the last ten months, the Director, Murkhtar Galadima listed some challenges to include; increasing cases of land grabbing and inadequate office accomodations.
He said other challenges are continuous harassment of officials of the department by security agencies in the course of carrying out their statutory responsibilities and non resettlement of indigenous communities which creates pockets of expanding slums throughout the city.
Galadima also revealed inadequate and obsolete utility vehicles for monitoring and heavy duty equipment for enforcement to cover the ever-growing territory, slow pace adoption to ICT and non-full automation of the Departments’ activities and inadequate manpower and low staff capacity.
According to him, lack of hazard allowance for staff, slow pace of infrastructural development especially in the satellite towns, abandoned buildings serving as criminal hideouts, non completion of the Phase V Districts land use plan and non utilization of land after removal of squatter settlements as additional challenges.
On the achievements recorded by the department, the director disclosed that
more than two billion naira was generated under the period.
The department also created over thirteen thousand direct and indirect jobs and granted more than one thousand building plan approvals.
According to him, the department achieved N2,534,673,850.08 revenue generation from January to October, 2023, representing 68.5 percent of the N3.7 billion target given to it department for the year.
He expressed optimism that his department would hit the target before December, saying, “We are embarking on recovering the bills awarded so that people can pay before end of this year so that we can meet our revenue target.”
Galadima stressed that the department received 1,765 building plan applications, quickly processed and granted 1,422, thus facilitating the generation of 13,873 direct and indirect jobs on different construction sites across the Territory.
The Director also revealed that in the course of ensuring that developments in the FCT complied with provisions of the Abuja Master Plan, 11,705 illegal structures and shanty colonies were dismantled within the period.
