Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Bello, has decried what he termed as inadequate revenue allocation to the capital city.
The minister said if the situation remained unchanged, Abuja was on its way to becoming a mega slum.
Mohammed who disclosed this at a town hall meeting on a new revenue formula organised by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission in Abuja said liabilities on ongoing 137 road-related projects in the capital city alone were in excess of N82 billion while about N800 billion was required as of July 2021 to complete ongoing projects.
He said there was a lot of work to do in the capital city and the current funding allocation was insufficient.
“Because Abuja is home for everyone in Nigeria, It is very important to consider the development in Abuja as a fully joint national project. For us to really achieve the goals that established Abuja and the Federal Capital Territory, we have to work out a funding mechanism for Abuja.
“There is so much that needs to be done to finalise the master-plan and concept, and that cannot be done based on the present system of funding, where Abuja is seen as a small company of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s budget. Abuja should not be looked at as just the federal government project but as a project for the whole of Nigeria.
“In the presentation that we made to the commission, we have proposed a special funding mechanism for Abuja independent of what is allocated to the Federal Government. We have also proposed that the area councils within Abuja should also be considered just as any other local government as stated in the 1999 constitution,” he added.
