By Ben Adoga, with additional report
President Bola Tinubu has approved the Federal Capital Territory’s over N1.1trn statutory budget for the 2024 fiscal year.
Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, disclosed this during a media parley in Abuja yesterday.
He expressed delight over the assent by the President, and explained that the budget will impact on infrastructure development, healthcare facilities, as well as rehabilitation of schools in the FCT, amongst others.
The development comes on the heels of the FCT appropriation bill passing the second reading at the Senate last month.
A breakdown analysis of the N1.1trn budget, indicated that N280bn was earmarked for overhead, N726bn for capital projects, and N140bn for personnel, bringing the total budget to N1.147tn.
Leading the debate, the sponsor of the bill and Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, said the appropriation bill took into cognisance the FCT administration’s revenue and expenditure forecasts which are in tandem with fiscal and developmental policies of the Federal Government.
•FCTA recovers over 100 hectares of land, set to collaborate with anti-graft agencies, police.
Meanwhile, the FCT Administration yesterday disclosed that it has recovered over 100 hectares of land illegally acquired in Gosa district of the FCT.
The FCTA also said it was considering the involvement of anti-graft agencies and the Police in its operations to bring the perpetrators to book.
The Administration revealed this during the recovery of over 100 hectares of land in Gosa district.
Speaking with journalists, the Director, Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, noted that the illegal fencing of the expansive area was being removed to pave way for the proper allottees to access their plots.
He said, “We are determined to eliminate cases of land grabbing in the FCT, remember a case by the train station last year where we removed fenced built by land grabbers. Here, we have received reports of encroachments on allottees plots.
“We were here on Saturday to recover the plots, today is just the completion of what we’ve started. We have recovered over 100 hectares. We will go beyond this reported case, because we believe that more illegalities are taking place here. We are removing all illegal fences beyond the 100 hectares.
“Due to the level of criminality involved we are looking at options, we are looking at collaborating with relevant government agencies as it involves economic waste and economic crime.
We are looking at involving the EFCC, the IPCC as well as the Nigeria Police so that the perpetrators of these crimes can be arrested and prosecuted.
“There is back tendency that unsuspecting Nigerians can be deceived into buying such plots of land, unknowing to them that some of them are products of land grabbing. I want to advice those intending to buy plots to conduct due diligence in every aspect by going to the Department of Development Control, Urban and Regional Planning and the Department of Land Administration.”
Galadima assured that the expertise would be sustained as they were determined to spend two weeks in the area and thereafter visit on monthly bases to ensure further infractions are not carried out.
