We have no conflict with NASS over construction of public toilets ― FCTA

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2 years ago

The misunderstanding between the National Assembly and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), over public toilets has been put to rest.

The Senate Committee on FCT had recently stopped the construction of public toilets in communities that didn’t conform with the Abuja master plan and that were not captured in the budget.

However, FCT Director, Reform Coordination and Service Improvement, Dr. (Mrs.) Jumai Ahmadu on Tuesday during a press briefing explained that it was a minor misunderstanding which has since been put to rest and that there was no conflict between the National Assembly and the FCTA

She said; “When Nigeria became number two on the global rating on open defecation, it became necessary and expedient for intervention in that direction.

“That was the reason for the toilets in communities to halt open defecation. Private investors were contacted by interventionist organisations. The government was not involved, the National Assembly was of the impression that an extra-budgetary expenditure was engaged in, but after explanations, there is no conflict between the National Assembly and the FCT Administration.” She stated.

Ahmadu disclosed that the projects are going on, meeting the timelines and specifications.

In a related development, Ahmadu charged civil servants to prove themselves as policies of government are implemented by them.

According to her, most failures of governments are traceable to the poor performance of the civil service, saying; “90 per cent of government failure is on civil servants” hence the introduction of Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) by the Administration.

The personnel training on SOP is a manual given to each civil servant to personally understand individual work schedules before any training when necessary.

Ahmadu disclosed that in 2006 alone, N100 million was used for the training of civil servants in the FCT, but since the SOP document was introduced, the cost has been drastically reduced far beyond that. She said out of the 150 trained personnel, 50 are set to train the next set of staff.

According to Ahmadu, the FCT Administration has advanced towards perfection so that even Lagos State sent staff to understudy how the FCT is doing it and succeeding so well.

Recall that Tribune Online had reported how the Lagos State government in September sent to staff for a two working day visit to understudy the FCT Reform Coordination and Service Improvement.

In tandem with service delivery in the FCT, Ahmadu disclosed that the call centre unit of the department alone received over 100,000 calls from residents who called in to complain about one issue or the other.

Out of that, she said action was taken on 40,000 of the complaints to the satisfaction of the callers.

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