Dealing With FCTA’s Parking Management Changes

A few weeks ago, the Federal Road Safety commission (FRSC) released statistics on road accidents, which put casualties at 2,235. This is a sharp increase on the 1,822 recorded in 2010.
It is a fact that Nigerians are generally impatient, reckless and careless drivers and even worse in the parking culture.
Seeing the need for a reorientation and sanitizing of traffic culture especially of residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the FCT Administration under the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) Act of 2005, entered into a concessional agreement with two pioneers civil parking management companies; the Platinum Parking Management Services (PPMS) and the Integrated Parking Services  (IPS).
In adopting this project, the FCTA simply borrowed a leaf from advanced countries like Europe and America, where there was a well structured On Street Parking culture, which in turn, rubs off on the driving and parking culture of its citizens.
The aim of this collaboration between the Transport Secretariat of the FCTA and the parking management services was to wade into the road carnage and instill discipline in drivers within the Federal Capital City (FCC) and also serve as a revenue generating avenue for the administration.
February 2012 saw the official flag-off of the On Street Parking popularly called Park ‘n’ Pay on the streets of the metropolis with designated Zones Concessioned to the two parking management companies.
Even with the initial resistance which trails every new policy introduced by government, investigations shows that FCT residents were beginning to adapt to this new introduction.
Yesterday however put a new twist to the novel idea we borrowed and were trying to replicate from the more developed Western world as FCTA officials engaged the concessionerd companies in a fist cuff over areas of concession.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PPMS, Mr. Otunba Olarewaju, said that touts who claimed they were concessioners from the FCTA invaded their areas of concession and assaulted some officers.
Olarewaju said, “my staff came to their station this morning and met some touts who could not properly identify themselves claiming that our well delineated zones have been concessioned to them. This is a senseless claim because we did not receive any form of notification from the Transport Secretariat to that effect.
“We have a five year concession contract which runs from 2012 to 2017 with the Transport Secretariat, we just started operations in February, 2012, that is nine months ago, and now we come to our station and see people with questionable character lacking in decorum positioned there.”
According to him, “how can people from nowhere come and take over places we have spent millions to prepare; we have spent millions on signages, street and land marking. Organisations have paid for the parking bays within our delineated zones and we have spent millions to training of graduates on ethics and decorum for the job.”
He lamented that the FCTA was stifling the novel innovation the pioneer companies were trying to introduce to Nigeria by introducing multiple companies to a sector that was just budding.
“This act by the administration is simply making a mockery of the industry. This charade of stupidity and unprofessionalism will simply bastardise the budding industry,” he added.
The Managing Director of IPS, Mr. Iliyasu Abdu, expressed dismay at what he described as an unwarranted assault on his staff.
He said, “this morning, my staff was assaulted by touts at their post. The people who came in reflective jackets with Special Marshals inscribed on it, assaulted them, collected their Point of Sales (POS) machines, their pre loaded cards and cash, saying they were now in charge of our posts, which I find ludicrous because we did not get any notification from the FCTA about such development.”
He expressed disappointment at the administration for their inability to keep to their part of agreement, noting that frustrating investors will not develop the nation’s economy.
He said, “rather than evaluate the project, find out the progress or challenges the project has encountered or even bring out a singular mode of payment for the companies, the administration, out of incompetence, went and brought other companies to mess up our efforts. It is quite unfair.”
Abdu said the companies will try a peaceful settlement of the misunderstanding and if by 60 days the dispute was not settled amicably then the companies will be forced to seek legal redress.
In her reaction, the Public Relations Officer of the secretariat, Mrs. Stella Ojeme, said the secretariat intends to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which will mark the formal concessioning of two new parking companies to manage some zones in the FCC.
Ojeme said, “the idea is to decongest the city of traffic because of the mass influx of residents into the FCC during the day.”