The Citizens Awareness Against Corruption and Social Vices Initiative (CAACASVI) has petition President Muhammadu Buhari, over what it called series of maladministration in the FCT, by the territory’s Minister, Muhammad Musa Bello.
The Executive Director, CAACASVI, Comrade Olumuyiwa Onlede, told reporters on Monday in Abuja that the President Buhari administration had its foundation laid on the promise of good governance to be propelled by accountability and transparency in government which they believed and keyed into like many other Nigerians who believe in his capacity to deliver on that premise.
The petition copied to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, and the FCT minister among others said that FCT Minister was displaying maladministration, incompetence and loss of control in the FCTA, resulting in abysmal performance and loss of revenue in the territory.
According to them, for the past six months, the office of the Director of Treasury of FCTA has been vacant for no justifiable reasons.
“This is gross violation of principle of corporate good governance in FCTA as the Permanent Secretary is simultaneously performing the function of Director of Treasury, thereby making approvals and payments at the same time which means the Permanent Secretary approbate and reprobate at the same time,” Onlede said.
He added that the Executive Secretary in the FCTA, reports directly to the minister directly without any input from the Permanent Secretary but that these laid down reporting line has since changed at the instance of the minister, Musa Bello.
He said, “Now FCDA files goes to the Permanent Secretary from the Honourable Minister, this is totally wrong. The most serious among this issue of maladministration is the office of the Director of treasury of FCTA that has been vacant for the past six months for no justifiable reasons.”
He also cited several cases when development control that is in charge of demolition of illegal structures go ahead to demolish structures though there are substantive court orders, not vacated, restraining development control from carrying out such demolitions.
He said that the Minister always look the other way when served with court orders and that this has resulted to cost being awarded against FCDA by the court in a way that the account of FCDA is garnished to serve as a deterrent and this adversely affects the running of FCDA in term of fund.
“Since the beginning of this administration in 2015 there has been no substantive Executive Secretary to pilot the affairs of the five secretariats of FCTA, the management of the departments have being in acting capacity since then and that has affected the policy implementation of FCTA due to the fact that those in acting capacity are not permitted by law to take some critical decisions or act on them.
“Same goes to most of the parastatals under FCDA, they are also performing below expectation due to the fact that they lack power and even the confidence to carry out major and important decision which ordinarily would have benefited the agencies.
“Due to rigorous and unnecessary bureaucracy imposed on the system by the minister, court orders are not acted upon quickly and in some cases ignored by his office and this often lead to judgement against FCTA and its parastatals,” he said.
On land allocation, the CAACASVI boss said that lately places that were believed to be green areas or close to water channels are being allocated to property developers for estates, the consequences of these in future may get out of control just as being seen in big cities that failed to follow the master plan.
They, therefore, issued a 14-day ultimatum to the minister to act on these concerns, especially those relating to appointment of a Director of Treasury and obeying court orders.
