The Chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Alhaji Abdullahi A. Candido, has said that contrary to claims by a stakeholder, the FCT Minister, Muhammad Musa Bello, was not starving area councils of funds.
Candido, who was reacting to a comment by Alhaji Tanko Abari, an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain in the FCT that the minister was not disbursing funds to area councils for developmental projects, said “that cannot totally be said to be true.”
He said area councils in the FCT unlike local governments in the states enjoy full allocation from the Federal Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC).
“Whatever is accruable to the area councils is given to them by the minister. I want to tell you categorically clear that the FCT minister has never tampered with area councils’ allocations,” he said.
Asked if the area councils have also benefitted from the Paris Club refund, he said the FCT was still trying to get the first tranche of the funds, expressing optimism that when secured, they would be disbursed to area councils accordingly.
