Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, has given area councils in the territory a clean bill of health as regards their performance, saying they are “doing their best.”
This is against public outcry by residents of the FCT, especially those resident in satellite towns who at different occasions have complained about the near absence of infrastructure in the area councils and have queried the performance of the area council chairmen.
However, the minister who was responding to a question as to whether the area councils were performing up to expectation, considering the allocations given to them, during the FCT Peoples Forum, held to mark the end of the Good Governance Tour for the FCT, insisted that the councils were performing optimally.
“Area councils are doing their best; it is only the FCT that gives to the area councils whatever money they get from the federation account. It is only in FCT that you go to Kuje and Bwari and you see roads being built by the area councils. It is only in the FCT that you see the area councils building hospitals. They are doing the best they can do and I am not holding brief for them,” Mohammed said.
Speaking in the same light, the chairman of Association of Local Governments in Nigeria (ALGON), FCT, Danladi Etsu Zhin, said the area councils were working very hard, providing infrastructure but because of the daily influx of people into the councils, people who had just moved into a particular council may not know what efforts the council authority was making.
?“It is only in the FCT that the local governments are constructing asphalt roads. For instance in Kuje, we have done about eight major streets with standard drainage, including Kuje General Hospital road, Low-cost road and Angwan Gede Road. Go to Bwari area council there is road construction from the entrance into Bwari town to Angwan Sabo in Gwagwalda, the road from Aguma’s palace to old Kutunku was done by the area council chairman, come to AMAC, Jikwoyi road was constructed by AMAC Chairman and Kabusa Road was also constructed by AMAC Chairman.
“When you talk about local government, some people are just staying in the local government headquarters; they don’t know what the council is doing in villages. We have 10 electoral wards each in each of the six area councils. In Kuje, we have 250 villages and Kuje town is just one of them so you are expected to work in all other villages. We are also building clinics and primary health care centres,” he explained.
Zhin, who is also the chairman of Kuje area council howver said the six area councils face the challenge of funds as they were compelled to pay to their staff, the federal government salary structure because of their position in the FCT.
“The challenge we face is that the area councils are paying to workers what the federal government is paying and no other local government in Nigeria is paying that. As I speak to you, we are paying the N18,000 minimum wage and some area councils have over 100 primary schools. Kuje has 110 primary schools and we are the ones responsible for teachers’ salaries,” he added.