FCTA loses N2.1b to outdoor advertisers annually — Official
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) says it loses over N2.1 billion annually to debtors on outdoor advertisement and signage practitioners within the city.
Director of Department of Outdoor Advertisement and Signage in the FCT, Dr. Babagana Adam made the disclosure while conducting an enforcement exercise within the nation’s capital on Wednesday in Abuja.
He said the department would continue to carry out the enforcement exercise with the aim of achieving the desired goals of making Abuja one of the best cities in the world.
Adam said that due to lack of response from the practitioners, the department calls for reconciliation and recovery, and only 24 out of 96 practitioners appeared before the department.
According to him, virtually 70 to 72 per cent of them are either not functioning or are no longer in business, stating that the department is considering pulling down and removing all the signage that are tagged.
He explained that there are no fewer than 147 of such signage within the FCT, adding that the department has so far removed 18 and are now looking at the possibility of getting heavy duty equipment to remove other big ones.
The director advised owners of malls, hotels, shopping complexes, banks and restaurants to register with the department and pay their bills to avoid sanctions.
He said the department is determined to transform Abuja to be one of the well maintained and sustained city in the world and therefore, solicited the support of the media practitioners to educate and enlighten the public on the need to abide by the laid down rules and regulations guiding the department in the FCT.
” We have a lot corrupt practitioners that we are trying to clean; you know there is a lot of collaborators both within and outside. You know we practitioners and our staff connive to ensure that a lot of things do not go well,” he enthused.
Adam said that going forward the department would recruit people and train them to block all the leakages in carrying out the operation.
He added that the department is working in synergy with all the six FCT area councils with the mission to collect and remit the revenue collected from such practice in one pot.
”So far our partnership with the area councils has enable them to exceeded their last year quarter by about N4 million. In 2018, the department was able to generate N166 million and as I am speak now, it has hit the target of N194 million,” Adam revealed.
