By Ruth Oketunde/ Ndubuisi Nwachukwu
Mr Christopher Maikalangu, Chairman of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) says the Park and Pay policy in the City Center and some other parts of the FCT began on Friday.
Maikalangu said this while addressing a news conference at the council secretariat on Friday in Abuja.
The chairman, who was represented by Mr Emmanuel Inyang, Supervisory Councillor, Special Duties, AMAC, said that FCT Administration and other stakeholders have been briefed on the policy.
He said the policy falls within the jurisdiction of the area council as enshrined in the constitution and bye-law of the area council.
The chairman said that sign posts have been planted in areas where the policy would be executed.
He listed the areas to include: City center, Garki, Asokoro, and Maitama.
He added that a court judgement in 2014, upheld that the rights to collect such tax falls under the purview of the area council.
“AMAC as a council has decided to start the park and pay scheme and we are doing this with a human face, as it comes with a very little amount of money to those who will be parking around the stipulated areas.
“A token of 100 naira per hour will be charged and we don’t want anybody to pay cash. You can pay through the POS and we have made it easy as you can pay monthly or yearly and get your tickets from the officials that AMAC has mandated to carry out the exercise.
“We want to inform the residents that the park and pay policy has started today, Sept. 1.
“This is also to curtail indiscriminate parking, car theft, congestion in the city and promoting sanitation in the capital city,”he said.
He appealed to residents to cooperate with the officials enforcing the policy as all revenue received will be used for infrastructural development of rural areas in the council.
“Very soon, we will be rolling out scholarship scheme for indigenes and non-indigenes of the area council and empowerment scheme for women.
“We have already constructed roads and some are still on-going, we have so many things on water projects, provision of drugs in our hospitals and provided employment for our youths, among others.
“We are pleading with Nigerians not to take laws into their hands, as defaulters would be fined and charged to mobile courts.
“For places within the city where some vehicles are parked, especially organisations which do not have enough parking spaces, we have made provision to have a corporate parking agreement with those organisations, where a negotiable amount of money will be charged,”he said.(NAN)
