The Federal Capital Territory Administration has declared that the on street park and pay system will shortly be re-introduced to Abuja motorists after a court judgement that stalled the continuation in April. In an exclusive interview with AYONI M. AGBABIAKA, the Special Assistant to the FCT Minister on Media and Publicity, Mr Nosike Ogbuenyi, told Blueprint that the reformed park and pay scheme will be back shortly as a committee been set up by the minister is already crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s for the implementation. However, “the new scheme will be a friendly one,” he says
The Park and Pay system, FCTA’s way of extorting motorists
The park and park scheme was conceived by the FCT administration as a mechanism for ensuring orderliness and sanity on the Abuja highways particularly within the city center. It was also conceived as a way of saving critical infrastructure so that motorists don’t vandalise them by parking on top of them. Infrastructures such as: the flower belt, the walkways, and even the sewage as well as electric poles, telecommunication poles and CCTV poles etc. So the scheme has been working having being introduced in 2011 but effectively started in 2012.
Before the introduction of the on street park and pay system there was traffic regulation in FCT and that was done by the Road Traffic Department of FCT which is otherwise called the VIO- Vehicle Inspection Officer, the department has been on for decades in Abuja here and they have been working together with the Fedral Road Safety Corps and the Nigerian Police; especially the vehicle inspection unit of the Nigerian police to make sure that they bring about sanity on the road. However, the need for on street park and pay system came when it was realised that these traffic agencies were working but their efforts were not enough to protect the infrastructures that are put in place and also to make sure that nobody obstruct the free flow of traffic through the way they park; so that was why the park and pay system came because government reasoned that if there is a token been paid by motorists then they will feel more obligated to park in an orderly manner. So that was the token started been collected. Not really for profit purpose but just to sustain the system.
The court judgement that stoped the system recently
There was a set back when a judgement was delivered in April by Justice Peter Femi of the Abuja High Court declaring the scheme illegal; but one thing is very important,the judge did not condemn the system as bad, he made it clear in his judgement that the scheme is very good for the society but that the only problem was that it was not adequately captured by the existing byelaws governing traffic management in FCT.
How long will motorist in Abuja relax before the proper commencement of the scheme?
The system is coming back because the minister has set up a committee and the committee has gone very far and it’s mainly coordinated by the legal secretariat of FCT which is working on a bye law and legal secretariat is working together with transport secretariat and they are also coming up with comprehensive reform of park and pay system and the reform is going to take care of diverse areas, the areas include ensuring that the workers under the park and pay system are paid salary and wages that are not below the national minimum wage so that there will be no exploitation of young Nigerians by any operators. Secondly, that no operator exploits motorists in Abuja by imposing arbitrary charges. Now efforts have been made to ensure that the penalties are bearable by the Nigerian motorists. Also the issue of time was discovered that 30 minutes is too short for any meaningful transaction. Almost everybody was paying for 30 minutes even when some of them were going to stay for two hours; thereby resulting in skirmishes here and there. So there was also recommendation to see to whether the minimum time that will be paid for will be one hour while the penalty for disobedience, it was recommended that the fees should be reduced to more bearable level. All these things are subject to final approval when they come out but these are things worked on.
Refined scheme with same operators?
There is also a process to make all the operators to reprocure- that is to go through the process of reapplying whereby they will need to show their technical, managerial and operational competence as well as even financial competence because they should be able to have the necessary equipments to work with. So we are going to have a new park and pay system that is people friendly, that has human face and we expect that the kind of ugly scenario we were having before where the scheme was bringing bad name to the government will no longer reoccur. Very very soon, this scheme is coming back and we are reassuring the youth who lost their job that there is still hope particularly those of them that discharge their duty satisfactorily. We have been telling both the old operators and prospective new ones that they have to consider all those people who have already acquire basic experience in this work.
In specific term, when will the park n pay system be restored are you saying between a month or two
Honestly I can’t say that, it may be shorter than that and it may be slightly longer. The committee is just crossing the t’s and dotting the I’s right now, so when they finished that they will submit to the minister. They are even working with Abuja Municipal Area Council and others, so it is now a collaborative effort.
Motorists complaint that they operate like touts
Government is assuring the residents, government has noted that and this time around we have clauses in the agreement that we are entering into with them that any operator found engaging touts and operating as if they are touting, harassing Nigerians, government will not hesitate to terminate the contract of such an operator. The new park and pay is people friendly.
Workers always in hiding
These are some of the things we are looking at but we also appeal to motorist, when you park, be able to look ahead of you, there could be other vehicles that the park and pay official may be attending to, so it’s just for you to exercise a little patience. It’s not possible to place the workers on every two meters; it is better for you to tarry a little and do the right thing than for you to rush out and then you come back to fight.
This reform is also making sure that there will be proper training for the workers because what happens in the past, they were just recruiting anywhere to start selling tickets; this time around there will be whole lot of training on how to be courteous, training on how to watch the environment because they also have security role to play by been vigilant about what is going on and even safety of vehicles. They should also be concerned about trying to look very well at the owner who parked the vehicle in case of anybody tampering with it, they may be the first person to raise alarm about it. All these are some of the responsibilities they will be trained.
Are vehicles now at operator’s risk?
Even when you go to five stars hotel where you have uniformed security men armed, vehicles are still parked at the owners risk even when you visit your relatives anywhere; your vehicles are parked at your own risk. So the onus is on you to secure your vehicle. They are by no way under any obligation to take full responsibility in the event of anybody’s vehicle missing because if you park your car without removing the key from the ignition, you are inviting thief or you leave the key on the door, something can happen to it or you park your vehicle without wounding down, somebody can steal your valuable from it. Am just trying to tell you that they can be of help not that it is their responsibility to be a security man or women of motorists.
They do help, even under the former system, many people acknowledge that incidence of theft of cars dropped in the areas where park and pay system was on so this time around we are going to have enhanced security of cars because we are going to have better trained professionals manning those places but that is not to say that they are taking responsibility of safety of vehicles on the road. No, its not their responsibility.
Other acknowledged flaws by FCTA
The observed lapses are many, one- extortion. Everybody was crying over extortion, that charging of arbitrary fees, some of the fees were in excess. Nobody was ever permitted to charge N25, 000 and we were hearing rumours of such. The maximum charge under the previous scheme was N15, 000 when they tow your vehicle; although if you leave it in their garage it can attract demurrage. And there was also case of not been courteous, rudeness on the part of the workers to motorists, those things were observed, then cases of intimidation, harassing motorist was not acceptable. There was also the allegation of not been visible, making themselves unavailable only to surface to clamp the vehicle. All the cases we have, we are gathering them together we are trying to look at them to make sure that those people who are guilty of these things will answer some questions. And if they answer satisfactory, they continue. Am not saying that any of the operators may be disqualified but am saying it’s not automatic that all the operators continue, they will have to go through some conditionality’s.
