Senate has ordered contractors handling the construction of public toilets in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to halt any further constructions for failing to meet international standards.
The project which is under RUWESA, was initiated to end the open defecation in the territory, and it is being supported with counterpart funding from the World Bank, the federal government, and the FCT administration.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on the FCT, Senator Smart Adeyemi, who gave the order during the FCT budget defence before the committee, told the director of Development Control, Buba Galadinma, to investigate the genuineness of the approval of land for the construction.
Adeyemi, while faulting the design of the public toilets, said any project that was not approved by the National Assembly was illegal, saying the international convention that might ratify the construction of public toilets was usurping the constitutional duties of the water secretariat, hence the need to subject the RUWESA activities to FCT master plan.
The lawmaker complained that the designs of the pit toilets are obsolete, which is not linked to the city’s central sewage system, is not environmentally friendly, and also can add to criminality in their various location.
He, however, maintained that development control should stop those projects, “we should not make a monster of personality at the expense of people and dwindling resources.”
In his defence, the solicitor general of the FCT administration, however, suggested that the RUWESA which is a World Bank intervention project could be reconstituted to meet the gaps noticed in the project execution.
He also corrected the impression that the toilets provisions were born out of international convention ratification.
In another development, Adeyemi frowned at the deteriorating state of Abuja city, citing the night market, cooking on the main road of Abuja city centre, return of call girls, roadside trading, hawking, begging, and filthiness of the city, calling on the director of Abuja Environmental Protection Board, (AEPB), to wake up to his responsibility.
He maintained that the senate would not do blanket approval of government agencies, ministries, and departments, saying the allocation of the budget would continue to be on the performance of such department agencies and parastatals.
He claimed that a deteriorating environment would not only affect the economy of a nation but contribute to its insecurity and reputation, thereby promising that within the shortest time remaining, his committee would up the game to have FCT that worked for everyone.
