Abuja Municipal Area Council, AMAC, is at a loss on how to discharge its constitutional role of developing the rural communities within its jurisdiction due to dearth of revenue accruing to it.
Against popular expectations that the area council is buoyant enough to execute developmental projects within the area council, chairman of the committee in charge of revenue and market in the area council, Hon. Bala Iyah, told LEADERSHIP WEEKEND in an exclusive interview in Abuja, that the area council is in dire need of funds to develop communities in the area council in which it takes about eight hours to get to some of them.
Iyah who represents Garki ward at the council said that there is conflict between the area council and the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) over the control of tenement rate and revenue from the parks in the federal capital territory.
He explained that tenement rate is the engine room of revenue for the area council, but that the FCDA has always raised a barrier for it to actualise this.
But authorities of the FCTA dismissed the complaint of the councillor describing it as mischievous.
Speaking to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND on the issue, the senior special adviser to the FCT minister on information management, Hajia Jamilah Tangaza described as unfortunate the opinion canvassed by the councillor, saying that the markets were built by the FCTA.
She contested that the markets built by FCTA cannot be controlled by the area council as it is in control of the ones built by it.