Park-And-Pay Scheme Will Be Illegal Henceforth – Nyesom Wike

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike has come out to declare the ‘Park-and-Pay’ scheme as illegal.

He recently had his say during a media briefing to mark his first year in office as the FCT Minister, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, there was clear fraud in the contract agreement between the managing contractors and the FCT, and people should not be made to pay for parking in front of their businesses or places of residence.

He added that he was unaware of the reintroduced scheme, and the agreement had stipulated an 80 per cent payback to the contractors, with only 20 per cent of the total to be remitted to the administration.

His words, “A colleague of mine, a senior advocate, called me and said, ‘Sir, people came to the office now, trying to hijack all our cars.’ He said they were from the Transport Secretariat. I said, ‘Give the person the phone.’ I asked, ‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Park and Pay.’ I replied, ‘What do you mean by Park and Pay? I park a car in my house, and I pay?

I called the Transport Secretariat and the Mandate Secretary. I asked who introduced this Park and Pay scheme and what it meant. Who collects the money? It turned out there were agreements between the (Transport) Secretariat and some individuals who claimed to be consultants. Then I asked, ‘Consultants take 80 per cent, and the government takes 20 per cent?’

Where is this 20 per cent being paid to the government? I instructed that a statement be drafted. I called the Director of Press and said, ‘Send out a statement informing the public that there is no such thing as Park and Pay. It is illegal. That’s what I’m trying to convey,

The point I’m making is that, no matter how you shuffle things, you still have civil servants working with you. It is not easy, but you try as much as possible to reduce it to the bare minimum. But we must continue to fight hard.”