FCTA To Legalise ‘Pantaker Market’

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) says it has concluded plans to legalise and normalise activities at scrap markets in the capital city, as it plans to establish a world-class pantaker enterprise hub to effectively engage the informal sector of the economy.

The acting managing director and chief executive officer of Abuja Enterprise Agency, Chudi Ezirigwe, who disclosed this at a media briefing in Abuja, said when established, the hub is expected to provide shared facilities for operators at the scrap market to properly coordinate their operations and also sanitise the environment by removing them off the road corridors.

Ezirigwe said with the arrangement, operators would be able to assess business development services, and government interventions, among other services to help improve their businesses.

He said residents of the FCT who are informally engaged in the use of wastes like wood, aluminum, iron and other metals would constitute the hub.

“For us, the idea of having the pantaker is to create a formal location where you can have a shared facility. The intention has to do with providing shared facilities for this category of entrepreneurs in different areas ranging from metal fabricators, to people in carpentry, to people in the use of polyethylene to form usable items and many more. 

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“So that is the idea of the concept behind the pantaker which is to formalize them, get them registered, get them to understand that there are interventions by the government that they can assess.

 “We believe that if we formalize them in that kind of shared facilities environment that will call “the pantaker”, it will position them to also assess the agencies’ business development services, because what we do now ordinarily is that when we go for outreach programs. 

 “We will just invite them probably under a shade under a tree and we talk to them, but if we have that kind of pantaker structure, a hub, I think it will make our job easier and then also make the businesses more sustainable and profitable,” he said.