Succour is underway for residents of the Federal Capital Territory, as the FCT Administration has prioritized transportation and food supplies, on its intervention list following the removal of fuel subsidy.
FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, last week hinted that the administration is considering transportation and food supplies support with the N5 billion palliative intervention being expected from the Federal Government.
The Federal Government had on August17 announced a N5 billion palliative for each state of the federation, including the FCT, to cushion the impact of the removal of the petrol subsidy. Already, some of the states have confirmed receipt of N2 billion from the amount, while awaiting the N3 billion balance.
However, Wike, after a closed-door meeting with contractors handling different projects in the FCT, said that the FCT was not included in the N5 billion palliative until he wrote a memo informing President Bola Tinubu of the development.
He added that Tinubu has approved the amount, adding that other states have received N2 billion already, expressing confidence that the FCT will equally receive soon.
“But we are yet to decide on what to do with the N2 billion palliative. We have not chosen any area yet. Are we going to concentrate on food, but we are thinking that the issue of transportation is very important, particularly the urban mass transit.
“People would like to have easy transportation to go to where they want to go, and if you give them rice and they eat the rice today, what about transportation tomorrow? So, we have not come up with what actually we are going to use the money for, but I believe food support and transportation is very key,” he said.
The minister added that efforts were ongoing to bring back urban mass transportation to be able to reduce the suffering of the masses in terms of transportation.
