The Federal Executive Council (FEC), rising from a meeting
in Abuja yesterday, approved the resuscitation of the land swap programme aimed
at ensuring massive infrastructural development in the Federal Capital
Territory (FCT).
FCT Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Bello, told reporters after
the meeting that the land initiative, worth about N1trillion under the previous
dispensation, was designed to remedy the infrastructure deficit in the federal
capital by swapping land with private investors who would in turn provide
development.
The minister stated that FEC approved the resumption
following a memo he presented to the council, adding that some amendments were
made to the original initiative by establishing a legal framework to protect
all parties.
He said: “Today, at the Federal Executive Council meeting, I
presented a memo and an update on the FCT Land Infrastructure Swap Initiative
at the council. And after a lot of deliberations, the Federal Executive Council
approved the FCT Land Infrastructure Swap Initiative, which is popularly known
as land swap, which was started some time ago by the previous FCT
administration.
“After a review of what has transpired over the years, and
changes made, the Federal Executive Council approved that we now continue with
the land swap initiative on the basis of amendments to the procedures as well
as new safeguards introduced so that investors, the FCT, that is the
government, as well as off-takers will be protected. So, this is what we
discussed today.”
On the key provisions of the initiative, the minister
described the deal as an initiative between the FCT administration and the
private sector that would ensure provision of infrastructure to develop the
districts in the territory.
According to him, the private investors will provide the
entire infrastructure within a particular district and then they will be
compensated with land.
He said: “They will take a certain percentage of the land
developable within that district, while the FCT administration will take a
certain per cent.
“The whole essence is to encourage the development of the
city according to the master plan in designated districts and then, of course,
to also to resolve the issue of compensation and payments and relocation of
people as the city grows, and then, of course, to reduce the overall housing
deficit within the FCT. So, basically, this is the background.
“And what we have approved today is to establish a very
solid legal system, whereby all the parties in this transaction are protected.
And who are the parties, the first party is the investor, the second party is
the FCT administration, while the third parties are the off-takers. And in so
doing, investors will create a special purpose vehicle, whereby the investors
will come in and then the quantum of the investment will be determined on the
basis of which the financial institutions will provide financial guarantees to
the administration through performance bonds.
“And this performance bond will cover the totality of the
project and will be reduced as the project is being delivered. And then the
land that is going to be used as swapping for the investment that is going to
be held in custody by designated financial institution, which will serve as the
custodian. Of course, as milestones are being achieved, land will be released
to the investors which, obviously, they will sell and use to pay for their
investment. So, this is the whole concept.”
He added that the idea of reviewing the agreement was to
bring in “conditionalities that protect everybody and all these are done based
on the experience of the administration over the last few years regarding
previous investments done particularly using the mass housing model, which is
really in terms of size is just a fraction of what we are talking about.
“So, this is the whole essence, this is what we intend to
start rolling out now based on the conditions approved to the effect.”
Also briefing newsmen, Works and Housing Minister, Mr.
Babatunde Fashola, said he presented a note to the council on the need to be
conscious of the increased number of road traffic crashes on federal highways,
saying that the majority of accidents are not caused by bad roads.
He stated that three major federal highways, namely
Lagos-Ibadan highway, the Abuja-Kano highway, and Abuja-Keffi-Lafia highway,
have the highest cumulative number of road accidents.
According to him, in January 2021, more people died of car
accidents than COVID-19 and malaria combined.
He said: “So, we saw that this was something that needed to
be focused on. We saw that for the month of January, the number of people who
died from road crashes exceeded the combined numbers of people who died from
malaria and COVID together for the same month.
“While COVID and malaria were receiving national concerted
attention, perhaps it was necessary to bring this to the attention of the
government as part of our strategy for protecting life and property.
“So, we identified the need for various actions to be taken
from municipal, local government level to state and national level.”
According to Fashola, the process is on to reduce road
accidents on federal highways.
He added: “We are looking at also putting speed metres on
the highway. There is a combination of factors and we are also trying to
educate drivers. We saw that the biggest factor for these accidents from
over-speeding, loss of control, wrongful overtaking, brake failure, tyre
blowing out points to the role of the driver.
“Consistently over the years and this data is available. The
impact of bad roads and accidents was less than 2%. As big as that may be, it
is less than 2%. These factors I have mentioned; overspeeding, loss of control,
wrongful overtaking cumulate to over 70%. If we reduce this, we bring the
numbers down.
“So, I think our focus as a government is that we’ve agreed
that the driver has a role to play, starting from education and certification
for more level. So, this is going to be a multidisciplinary activity from the
Ministry of Education, Ministry of lnformation, FRSC, state and local
governments in terms of how they test and certify drivers.
“We are hopeful that FRSC will start something like a random
check on the highway for people to produce the driver’s licence. And that
awareness, hopefully, will reduce the number of uncertified drivers on the road
– because they are also a very big source of the problem. So, these essentially
are the highlights.”
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