FCT ‘park and pay’ operators short-changing govt – Wike
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has said that the On-Street Parking, otherwise known as the ‘Park-and-Pay’ scheme is illegal, citing fraud in the contract agreement between the managing contractors and the FCT.
The FCT minister questioned the arrangement where the private operators of the ‘Park and Pay’ scheme take 80 per cent of the revenue while remitting only 20 per cent to the government.
Wike spoke on Wednesday, during a media parley to mark his first year in office as the FCT Minister.
The PUNCH reports that the scheme, first introduced in 2014, was reintroduced in 2023, after the FCT administration signed a whooping N908.3bn agreement with concessionaires NAJEC Limited and Messrs Automaten Technik Bauman Nigeria Limited, with an estimated N26.93bn revenue for a 10-year term each.
The then Permanent Secretary of the FCT, Olusade Adesola, who signed the agreement on behalf of the FCT in August 2023, had said the reintroduction of the scheme was with the consent of the six area councils, and that the scheme was to entrench orderliness and organisation in the city.
However, Wike said he was not aware of the reintroduced scheme, noting that the agreement had stipulated an 80 per cent payback to the contractors, while only 20 per cent of the total would be remitted to the administration.
He added that he had since directed that a statement be released to inform residents that the scheme was illegal, noting that people could not be made to pay for parking in front of their businesses or places of residence.
“A colleague of mine called me, a senior advocate and said, ‘Sir, people came to the office now, trying to hijack all our cars’; he said they were from the Transport Secretariat. I said give the person the phone; I said, ‘Who are you, what are you doing?’ He said Park and Pay. I said, ‘What do you mean by Park and Pay? I park a car in my house, and I pay?
“I called the Transport Secretariat, the Mandate Secretary, I said, ‘Who introduced this park and pay, what does it mean, who collects the money?’ Now, unknown to us, there were agreements between the (Transport) Secretariat and some people who say they are consultants. Then I said consultants take 80 per cent and the government takes 20 per cent? Where is this money being paid, this 20 per cent to the government? Then I said, ‘Draft a statement’; I called the Director of Press, I said, ‘Send out a statement, that the public should be aware that there is nothing called Park and Pay. It is illegal, that’s what I am trying to say,” he said.
The minister disclosed that contracts such as the park and pay scheme were done in connivance with secretariats in the administration, stating that he was fighting to reduce the rot in the system to the barest minimum.
“The point I am making is, no matter how you shuffle, you still have civil servants working with you. It is not easy, but you try as much as possible to reduce it to the barest minimum. But we must continue to fight hard,” he said.
