FCT minister kicks against autonomy for AGIS

Move by the Senate to initiate autonomy for the Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS), by making it a full-fledged agency was opposed, on Thursday, by the authorities of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA).

The occasion was the public hearing on a Bill seeking an Act to Establish the Abuja Geographic Information Systems and another bill seeking a seeking legal backing for the Federal Capital Territory College of Nursing and Midwifery. It was organised by the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory ( FCT, Abuja ).

Sponsor of the Bill, Senator Mohammed Hassan Gusau, representing Zamfara Central in his presentation maintained that the need to accord AGIS a legal status as an independent agency was long overdue.

Senator Gusau argued that AGIS as a unit or land department was finding it increasingly difficult to cope with a myriad of problems associated with application, processing, allocation and management of land.

He said: “AGIS as it is now, finds it very difficult to cope with problems such as unattended applications for land, processing, multiple allocations, land documents forgeries, inefficient revenue generation etc.”.

He was, however, countered by the FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello.

Represented by Permanent Secretary of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, Dr Olusade Adesola, the Minister submitted that rather than create a bogus bureaucracy what was needed was to strengthen the information technology capacity of AGIS for effective service delivery.

He said: “Upon an in-depth review of the above-mentioned Bill in the context of the mandate of the AGIS as a technical Department, it is our considered opinion that the passage of this Bill will merely amount to the addition of a bureaucratic layer to Land Administration system in the FCTA.

“This Distinguished Committee may wish to note that the core function of the AGIS is to record, store and manage geospatial data on land and attributes generated by core stakeholders in Land administration in digital form.

“Accordingly, a passage of this Bill in its current form will conflict with the roles of existing statutory Departments and may be rather disadvantageous.

“Furthermore, the responsibilities of AGIS enumerated above, does not require the establishment of an Agency. Its need would be better served through strengthening its Information Technology capability as
currently being done by the FCTA.”

The Honorable Minister of the FCT, however, backed the latter bill to give the FCT College of Nursing and Midwifery , required legal instrument.

” Generally, we have carefully perused the entire bill and find it appropriate,” he said.

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FCT minister kicks against autonomy for AGIS