11 July 2008
The Federal Capital Territory [FCT] was designed to have 60 districts but only six have been developed, FCT Minister, Dr Aliyu Modibbo Umar, disclosed in Abuja yesterday.
He also said about 300 hectares of land including those behind the State House were earmarked as the city's central park in order to have a green environment devoid of pollution.
The Minister, who spoke at the commissioning of Garki II ultra modern market, said the FCT Administration will introduce a levy where each resident will be levied between six and ten thousand naira to put infrastructure in these places.
He said: "As you know, Abuja was designed to have 60 districts. As at now, we have only built six districts even though we have allocated all the lands in almost seventy or eighty per cent of the districts.
"We are also going to propose that by next year, each district, particularly the ones that have engineering design like Mabushi and Katampe, we get counterpart support from the owners of the land: instead of the N2000 levy put on them, asked my engineers to do accurate calculation of how much it costs to put infrastructure in Mabushi for instance. And they said it is N10,000 per square metres.
The Minister dispelled insinuations that the NNPC will be among the buildings that will give way to the proposed boulevard, saying it is the only building that conforms with the Boulevard Masterplan because it is occupying all the four hectares of land allocated to it.
In his speech, Chairman of Urban Shelter Limited said the market cost over N60bn, noting that it comprises 2,680 shops of 26 types apart from ancillary buildings and facilities.
He said: "There are over 1500 car park spaces, adequate water supply and electricity supply from PHCN and six 500KVA standby generators".
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