In line with the mandate of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to partner with private developers to provide houses to her teaming staff to alleviate the housing deficit in the capital city, the administration has flagged off the payment of cheques to residents of Karshi a satellite town, whose farms are affected, to pave way for the full commencement of the project.
The Coordinator Satellite Town Development Department (STDD), Comrade Obinna Francis Ogwuegbu, who stood in for the Hon. Minister of State FCT, Dr Ramatu Tijani, stated that the FCTA was particularly pleased that the project was finally coming to fruition months after the initial hiccups experienced after the ground breaking ceremony last year.
According to him, the final take-off of these noble initiatives of the Hon Minister of State at such a time as this goes to show the premium investors have in the template the Administrator has developed towards providing infrastructure, opening up the satellite towns, as well as providing housing for Nigerians in dire need of accommodations across the capital city.
Ogwuegbu said, “The fact that investors can go out of their way to put their money down for compensation despite the fact that they are going to build houses in collaboration and partnership with the FCTA Administration is highly commendable,” even as he revealed that in the past, the burden of such exercise would have entirely fallen on the shoulder of government alone,” he stated.
He further disclosed that the office painstakingly went through every record of the beneficiaries over a long period of time to ensure that proper figures and exact persons were enumerated and compensated inline with its extant laws as enshrined in the constitution.
Earlier, the Director Resettlement and Compensation, ESV Perpetua Ohamah, stated that it does not matter how long it has taken for this project to commence as her office did everything to ensure that international best practices were followed.
The Director commended the Sarki of Karshi and his people for their patience and cooperation saying that the citing of this new project will no doubt bring about the needed development to the area.
“As you know, the job of my Department is that of preliminary works for every project that has to do with land in the FCT and for this particular one as well, we have had to do the valuation and follow up to make sure money was made available for us to pay the indigenes,” she stated.