By Ismaila Jimoh, Abuja
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has carried out demolition of no fewer than eleven units of flats found to be constructed under the high tension which also stand in the way of upcoming bridge planned for the area in Apo-Dutse.
The exercise which brought down the estate building comprises of three and four bedrooms was carried out by the Department of Development Control FCTA on Thursday.
While speaking with the journalists after the exercise, Director of the Department, Tpl. Mukhtar Galadima disclosed that the developer ignored all notices issued on the need to abide by development regulations.
He said the demolition became imperative because the estate is located under high tension, and standing in the way of an upcoming bridge planned for the area.
He, however, noted that the developers was actually allocated the plot, albeit wrongly, revealing that the developers has been offered opportunity for alternative allocation, but they are yet to accept, instead, they proceeded with the illegal development.
His words: “This is a statutorily allocated plot…..They requested for approval and applied for building plan approval, which we declined for the fact that it’s in close proximity to a high-tension line, as well as a stream channel. So, we declined to grant approval, but they moved ahead to work.
“We have been serving notices, even from the excavation stage. Various stages of development, we’ve been serving notices, we even communicated to them in writing that the work should be stopped. But unfortunately, maybe considering their institution and agency, they moved on.”
Galadima also stated that Engineering Department of the FCDA, wrote to his Department on plans to construct a bridge on that particular section of the District, “So, there’s nothing we can do about this.”
Ruling out possibility of compensation for the development, the Director explained that “compensation is given to any property that has approval but then it’s being cut off by development process.”
He added that in the case of the demolished property, there was “no approval, you were asked to stop at the excavation stage, you didn’t comply, so there’s no compensation,” he insisted.
When you prosecute people, this is just to pay penalty or they will pay for the cost of mobilisation to sites. The context is that you should surcharge such offender. Going in detail, I don’t have that knowledge. Thank you very much.
The Director also hinted at the possibility of prosecuting defaulting developers and making them pay the penalties, including cost of demolition.
