Abuja: FCTA to reintroduce controversial park-and-pay policy

The federal capital territory administration (FCTA) says it will reintroduce the park-and-pay policy in the city centre from May.

The policy was suspended in April 2014 after a high court judgment stopped the FCTA from collecting fees from residents for on-and-off the street parking within the metropolis.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday in Abuja, Usman Yahaya, acting secretary of the FCTA transport secretariat, said the policy is being reintroduced to curtail the rate of wrong parking in the city.

Yahaya said a court had ruled against the policy because the scheme was not recognised in the laws of the FCT.

“It was based on these shortcomings that the Suntrust Savings and Loans Ltd., challenged the powers of the FCTA to impose levies on motorists that park their cars on FCT streets,” he said.

“Justice Peter Affen in his judgment, commended and described the ‘park and pay scheme’, which was introduced for the purpose of effective traffic management as laudable but ruled that the scheme was unknown to the FCT laws.

“He blamed the authorities for not backing the scheme with adequate laws.

“On-street parking management was suspended in 2014 as a result of an FCT High Court ruling that declared the operation illegal because it was not specifically mentioned in the 2005 FCT Road Transport Regulation.”

Yahaya said issues surrounding the policy have been resolved, adding that scheme will kick off in May.

“The scheme was riddled with so much complexities, the operators were accused of many ill acts, but we have resolved the issues, so in May this year the scheme will kick off,” he said.

“In the past seven years, the Administration had embarked on various measures aimed at addressing the concerns raised by the Court and the public with regards to the scheme, the FCT Administration in collaboration with its legal team produced FCT Parking Regulations 2019 to amend the parking section of 2005 FCT Road Transport Regulations.”