We are writing to you, Your Excellency, for your intervention for the payments of the debt owed the FCT Area Council Consultants. This special call on you for your intervention became necessary after several of our pleas for interventions to various high places have been met with deaf ears.
Your Excellency, after much appeal to the former Minister of the FCT, Mallam Muhammadu Musa Bello for the payments of this debt, he set up a committee which confirmed that we were really owed the sum of Four Hundred and Eight Million naira only (N408,000,000) in total but to our surprise and after much appeal for payment nothing was done about it by the previous administration till it left on May 29th, 2023 against the changed mantra of that administration.
Our cry for intervention to you became necessary because of our abiding faith in your renewed hope administration. Our plight as consultants who carried out training services on behalf of the FCT Area Council Service Commission since 2020 after carrying out these services and all frantic efforts for this payment to be carried out proved abortive so our call to you for your urgent intervention.
As we speak, the subject file has been on the table of the Permanent Secretary of the FCT since it was approved for payment by the immediate past FCT Minister, Mallam Mohammed Musa Bello. We have out of frustration written severally to the Permanent Secretary, the FCT Minister of State, the Senate Committee on the FCT as well as your predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari by all the 44 Consultants to draw their attention to no avail. This drew the attention of many Newspapers which necessitated the setting up of a Committee under the supervision of the director of FCT Audit to investigate and report back to the appropriate authorities.
The report of the Committee it will interest Sir, revealed the existence of this consultant services debt and conveyed the recommendation for the payment of Four Hundred and Eight Million naira (N408,000,000) to all of us the 44 Consultants and was graciously approved by the former FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammedu Musa Bello and the details are contained till today in the relevant file titled “Leadership Investigation Report on Unpaid Consultants of the FCT Area Council Service Commission”.
We are making this appeal for your intervention to effect this payment urgently as the long inability/refusal has brought untold hardship on our families. We have not been able to meet up to our responsibilities to our families and this has led to the death of two of our members during the course of the struggle for payment of our rightful claims.
Finally, we therefore call on you, Your Excellency, to use your good office and your renewed hope mantra to call on the new Minister of the FCT, Barr. Nyesom Wike, the Minister of state Dr Mariya Mahmud as we have equally written them too since on the 28th of August to equally do justice on our case as some of our members have equally lost their houses to some of this cooperatives society where loans were accessed from to execute this training exercise to please effect this payment as soon as possible.
Thanks in anticipation of your urgent actions and intervention.
Yours sincerely,
Olusegun Owolabi
Abuja
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