Abuja Under Me Won’t Become Like Lagos — FCT Minister

Residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) who have expressed concern that Abuja may become like the former capital, Lagos, can now heave a sigh of relief as the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed has assured that under him, those things that were responsible for the relocation from Lagos to Abuja would not be allowed to thrive.

The minister gave the assurance yesterday when he joined mandate secretaries, heads of agencies and parastatals as well as directors in the FCT administration to sign a performance contract.

He said the mission of the FCT administration was to build Abuja city and the territory in compliance with the Abuja Master Plan and to deliver services aimed at improving the overall quality of life of all the residents of the Territory in line with world best practices.

“In achieving all these, my administration is taking into consideration all the justifications for the movement of the Federal Capital from Lagos to Abuja,” he said.

Mohammed charged the secretaries, directors and heads of agencies to ensure that they deliver quality services within specified time lines to the residents as encapsulated in the agreement they just signed, saying the performance contract was aimed at ensuring and managing efficiency, performance and output through key performance indicators (KPI).

He warned that his administration will not condone inefficiency, leakages and corruption as he is bent on delivering on President Jonathan’s agenda for in the FCT, and emphasising that he is committed to establishing a result-oriented administration with constant focus on value-adding and service delivery.

Speaking further, he reiterated that the FCT administration is desirous of achieving the key deliverables in order to increase the impact/outcome of government spending to the residents through the National and Statutory budgets and Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), revealing that other sources of funding open to the administration include Debt Management Office (DMO) financing, FCT Infrastructure Investment Initiatives comprising Land-Swap, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP); Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) model as well as international donor support and other collaborative measures which must be adequately tapped.

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