…to return motor park taskforce
By Muhammad Abdullahi
Abuja
The Contractors who abandoned the new Nyanya Bus Terminal must either return to site and work commensurate with the huge sums of money they collected or face revocation of their contracts.
Secretary, FCTA Transportation Secretariat, Zakari Angulu Dobi who stated this over the weekend during inspection of the project expressed unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the level of work done.
“I am not happy with the level of work looking at what government has spent on that project. That is very clear, but to conclude is to say that we will meet to get more clarification.
“We will go back and look at the evaluation becuase so much money has been paid; based on what I saw on the site and what is contained in the file, we need to know why the contractors are not on site having received such amount of money.
“I am also made to understand that Transport Secretariat is not the one directly supervising the project.
“That means that the Secretariat will meet with the FCDA department of Public Building, who is saddled with the responsibility of supervising the project, to tell us how they arrived at the valuation, the money that have been paid and why silence on site by contractors, and what we can do, together, to complete the project.
“If I am not too comfortable with the clarifications, the Public Building and Transportation Secretariat will, again, visit the site with journalists”, he said.
Will heads roll ? “Very well, why not! First is to meet with Public Building Department, second is to meet with the contractors.
“For heads to roll is simply for the contractors to do the proper thing. If they agree to go back to site and do the proper thing based on what they collected from government, fine, but if they don’t, definitely (heads will roll)”.
Dobi while also inspecting temporary motor parks across the Federal Capital City, regretted that many taxi drivers were refusing to use of the parks, noting that the only way to tackle the problem was to reintroduce the taskforce to enforce compliance.
He also added that the Secretariat would hold meetings with operators of the temporary motor parks and carry out upward reviews of fees they pay to the Administration.
“We have seen that the best thing to do is to bring back the taskforce. So we will look at the challenges -what are the costs of bringing it back, and what we intend to generate.
“Because we will not be operating at a loss. Therefore, all the temporary parks should know that government is going to do her part, in as much as we will be willing, by the time enforcement starts, to review (upward) the revenue payments of these various parks”.
The Secretary, however, stated that the parks would not pay the same amount because some were more busier than others hence they would definitely pay appropriately to government.
Earlier, Director, deparrment of Traffic Management in the Secretariat, Engr. Etim Abak noted that though some work had been done on the Nyanya Bus Terminal site, he could not ascertain the work done in line with what supposed to be done.
“But by the time we do the evaluation, we will know how much work has been done and how much has been spent on it”.
Abak explained and added that the Secretariat would also know why work has stopped on site during the meeting with the contractors.