By Abdullahi Muhammad
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Urban and Regional Planning Tribunal (URPT) has received 90 complaints fi led by litigants since inception in 1996. Acting Secretary Yahaya Abubakar, who gave this revelation yesterday at a press briefi ng, said out of the number, 12 complaints were determined on their merit, 18 complaints was struck out for lack of diligent prescription while a total number of 53 are ongoing. He disclosed that the Tribunal being fi rst of its kind in the country “is becoming a resource centre for other states and schools who visit the Tribunal as part of planning laws and administrative trainings.” He also said the Tribunal being a court of law saves the FCTA and contraveners lots of money by resolving confl ict at less cost than the regular court, adding that “cases here are treated within a short time frame.
” He lamented that the public has not been patronising the Tribunal as expected due to the lack of knowledge of the existence of the Tribunal and the benefi t derived from it. He said: “Another major challenge is the lack of cooperation from stakeholders, departments and agencies in terms of responding to heating notices, giving information and forwarding cases. Again the tribunal is under-utilised by the Department of Development Control who by virtue of the act is the enforcer of the planning law. As a quasi judicial body, the Tribunal cannot initiate proceedings on its own. Th e secretary submitted that the Urban and Regional Planning Tribunal (URPT) which is a court of inferior records was set up among other things to remove bottlenecks associated with the implementation of Abuja master plan, promote high public confi dence and remove administrative confl icts in planning.
