The Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) has condemned the planned return of the suspended ‘Park and Pay’ policy by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), accusing the FCT Transport Secretariat of misleading the FCT Minister, Muhammad Bello, on the policy.
The AMAC leadership said the move by the FCTA would not be accepted by it as it wasn’t the Administration’s duty to do so according to extant law.
In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Community Development to the Chairman of AMAC, Yunusa Yusuf, who faulted the planned reintroduction of the policy by the FCTA, instead of AMAC, he described the act as unjustifiable and aimed at denying AMAC the right to get its legitimate revenue to provide social amenities to the people at the grassroots of the nation’s capital city.
He said that the law does not permit another body to collect or manage motorists’ activities, especially on streets and motor parks in FCT, describing the recent announcement by the FCT Transportation Secretariat to reintroduce the ‘Park and Pay’ policy as very disturbing.
Yusuf said that it was also worrisome for the Transportation Secretariat to be cooking up a kangaroo way to implement the ‘park and pay’ policy, which ideally the law does not permit it to do and does not have the power to do.
“The FCTA should hands off the policy which has been planned to take off by the end of the first quarter of 2023. Because if it is allowed to return, it will affect revenue generation in the council.
“We want to clearly warn that nobody should cajole the minister to do the wrong thing. We know that the minister is law-abiding. It is clear that it is the responsibility of the local government to collect the park and pay or cooperate parking or any other name they want to fine tone or call it, so we want to tell the Transport Secretariat not to mislead the FCT administration.
“We want to say clearly as AMAC, we reject whatever action that will be introducing park and pay from the FCT Administration, it is not their duty, it is the duty of the local government, we have it in our laws, in our by-laws, in our acts, whatsoever you want to define it, and it has been both in the court of law, and it is clear that it is our responsibility.
“There are so many laws FCTA should concentrate on, not the ‘park and pay’. We have issues like that of the train station, people are dying, and neighboring communities are sacrificed for train stations and railways. They should go and attend to those issues, we know how people’s bags are been snatched in train stations.
“I think the FCTA has enough job to do, rather than concentrating on how to collect park and pay or cooperate parking or whatever it is called. It is solely the responsibility of AMAC and we have all the manpower required to enforce it and ensure that we get it done,” Yusuf stated.
