The past four years have been very exciting for Federal Capital Territory residents who had waited patiently over the years for development, and are now witnessing a flurry of developmental activities.
The architect of such activities is no other person than Senator Bala Muhammed.
The able minister had gone head long into the execution of projects aimed at providing critical infrastructure and a conducive environment for residents of the FCT. Senator Bala has been able to strategise the end product of which has been the transformation of Abuja into beautiful Capital city and a pride to the nation.
Senator Bala had told a meeting of stakeholders in Abuja shortly after his second coming that he would work in tandem with President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation Agenda, and went in with massive provision of critical infrastructures in all parts of the FCT which were being implemented in phases, through collaborative efforts of stakeholders in all sectors of the economy.
Senator Bala’s Public Private Programm (PPP) initiative which has generated interest among key stakeholders, has yielded positive results in the transportation and the social sectors. This has been translated into light rail and urban bus transportation projects.
The light rail projects involved about $500 million worth of a loan from the Chinese government and will be completed in 2015.
The minister also introduced a street parking system which helps to generate revenue for the FCTA and keeps Abuja Street – traffic flowing freely.
Of course, the introduced also, land -swap system has the capacity of solving the city’s many problems, especially during the period of cash-squeeze in the country. Similarly the land swap system was also designed to accelerate the development of the city and to resettle, through compensation of the affected persons.
It is on record that Senator Bala had earlier dealt with land speculators and swindlers who were involved in frauds and cheating of innocent Nigerians.
The minster action on the development of satellite areas which aimed at decongesting the city center gave residents easier option of going to the city center only for very important reasons. This followed the approval by President Jonathan for the minister to re-introduce the satellite Towns Development Authority (STDA) which involves about $ 40 billion.
The FCTA has been up and doing in the areas of provision of water, health facilities, schools, agricultural equipment, social facilities and had empowered youths. The Administration has completed work on major projects such as the Abuja airport and Gwagwlada/ Kubwa roads and other projects in the social sector.
The involvement of the private sector in land-swap and other projects in city center is aimed at providing solutions to many outstanding developmental problems in the FCT.
Many observers are of the belief that with a budget of only N306 billion naira last year, the Senator Bala administration has opened new frontiers of development in the territory, especially against the background of what was on ground at the time he was reappointed last year.
His latest move to improve the Abuja master plan, mass housing, education, provision of critical engineering infrastructures in eleven districts showed that a man working to earn a fine reputation.
Senator Bala’s method of developing rural areas, opening-up the territory to both foreign and local investors will impact positively on peoples’ lives.
This is not to say however that it has been all a bed of roses, with work still to be done on, especially in the area of development control and resettlement. The minister himself has admitted that there exist a problem at the development control as designs of structures submitted by developers are usually unnecessarily delayed which in turn slows down development.
As the minister said himself last week: “we are moving ahead; we will not be deterred in our effort to develop our capital city according to resources available, as expected by well meaning Nigerians.”
Ibrahim wrote this piece from Abuja. [myad]
