The Senate on Tuesday frowned at the “high cost of construction” in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
This was just as the Senate asked all secretariats, departments and agencies in the FCT Administration to double the current internally generated revenue by June 2016.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on the FCT, Senator Dino Melaye, made the submissions on behalf of the Senate at the inaugural meeting of its Committee.
Melaye summoned the chairmen of the Area Councils to appear before the Senate next week Tuesday.
He said: “These exploitative practices by both government and construction firms have pervaded the construction industry and fuelled the high cost of construction in the FCT.
“The committee noted that construction companies handling these projects have attributed the high cost to irregular and selective payment for jobs done by the FCT Administration despite the high interest rates and other liabilities incurred by these companies.”
Senator Melaye, who said the meeting was meant to effect a change and turn a new leaf in the way government is being administered in Nigeria and also to make the FCT better, promised that the Senate would enhance beauty and status of the Territory.
According to him: “The FCT transport sector is in a serious state of disarray.
“It is embroiled with uncertainties both in the land and rail transportation sectors.
“The railway sector is being transformed gradually into a serious conduit pipe where billions of naira is being allocated annually without visible appreciable developments on ground.”
The committee, Melaye said, has noted the unparalleled growth between the supply of infrastructural facilities and the incessant influx of people into the Territory and stressed the need to dedicate over 70 per cent of the 2016 FCT budget to desired infrastructure and amenities.
He lamented that the Territory had slid into environmental embarrassment due to the heaps of garbage, overgrown bushes, erection of tenets and shanties and abandoned vehicles, among others, which he feared could be a safe place for storage of explosives.
Senator Melaye accused the FCT Administration of failing to address the problem of waste disposal, cattle rearing in the city centre and the return of commercial motorcyclists.
He also noted that the Abuja Environmental Protection Board created to secure the quality of health and well-being of the residents and maximise the impact of physical development on the ecosystem of the Territory, had been neglected over the years.