FCT: Park-and-pay scheme illegal – Wike

Wike, who stated this on Wednesday in Abuja during a media briefing to mark his first year in office as the FCT Minister, cited irregularities in the contract agreement between the managing contractors of the scheme and the FCT.

Stating that he was unaware of the scheme before a friend pointed it out to him, Wike said he probed further to discover that the agreement had stipulated an 80 per cent payback to the contractors, while only 20 per cent of the total will be remitted to the FCT.

He said, “A friend of mine, a senior advocate, called me and said: ‘Sir, people came to our office now trying to hijack all our cars. They said they are from the transport secretariat’. I said, what is that? Give the person the phone. I said who are you and he said from park and pay. What do you mean by park and pay? I park in my house and I pay?

“I called the mandate secretary of transport secretariat. I said who introduced the park and pay? What does it mean? Who collects the money? Unknown to us, there was an agreement between the secretariat and some people who say they are consultants. Consultants? I said okay, consultant takes 80 percent and the government takes 20 percent? Where is this 20 per cent being paid to the government?”