By PHILIP YATAI

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, on Friday said that President Bola Tinubu has approved the pulling out of FCT Administration from the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

Wike, who disclosed this while briefing journalists in Abuja, said that the development would take Abuja capital city to where it was supposed to be.

He lamented that FCT was littered with projects, adding that the projects were being awarded without the requisite financial backing.

Wike said that part of the problem was the inclusion of FCTA into the TSA, however describing it as a tool that unifies all government accounts in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for effective management of finances and cash position.

This, according to him, is not necessary for FCT Administration because it is not a revenue collecting agency for the Federal Government.

“Take for example, so many projects were awarded in 2002, 2007, and 2010 and up to now they have not been completed.

“You can imagine a project that was awarded in 2010, this is 21 years. Imagine what they will cost now,” Woke said.

The minister added that the utilisation of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was another problem, decrying that the FCTA IGR was spending funds as they came.

This, he said, could not tangibly be of any benefit to the administration.

“So, I went to Tinubu and said, Mr President, if you want FCT to carry out development projects and infrastructure among others, then they must come out from TSA.

“What is the essence of TSA; blocking of leakages and the rest, FCTA is not a revenue collection agency for the federal government so what are you blocking?

“If I need money for projects, I cannot go to the CBN and say give us money, CBN will not give us money.

“I can go to a commercial bank but how do we pay? I say the best bet is that we must pull out,” Wike said.

The minister explained that, if FCTA was out of TSA, it could approach a commercial bank, collect loan, and tie it to its IGR.

He said, “Assuming I want to collect N400 billion from the bank, I can say our IGR is about N20 billion a month, can you take N10 billion every month and in a year, we have paid N120 billion.

“That is the only way we can survive it and Mr President graciously agreed with us and approved that we should pull out from the treasury single account.”

Wike assured the residents of FCT that with this development, myriad of projects would spring up from next year in FCT.

He thanked Tinubu for his foresight, adding, “with this development, insecurity in the FCT will soon be a thing of the past.” (NAN)

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