The Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC) says it has refurbished more than 333 vehicles through direct labour and thereby saved about N397 million.
The AMMC Coordinator, Alhaji Umar Shuaibu, said this at the 2019 Press Briefing on Thursday in Abuja.
According to him, the council supervises many operational departments with large number of utility vehicles that are used for monitoring and supervision.
He said most of the utility vehicles were grounded as a result of long usage without routine maintenance due to shortage of funds.
“Faced with many grounded vehicles and limited resources, council decided to initiate a direct labour strategy for restoring back to life the agency’s broken down vehicles and machinery, rather than procuring new ones.
“Using the approach, the council initially refurbished 11 vehicles at a total cost of N6.3 million thereby saving the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) an estimated market value of N225 million.
“Based on the success recorded using the approach, the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Bello, called on the other Agencies/Secretariats of the FCTA to emulate the laudable initiative of AMMC.
“The minister also refunded the sum spent by the council in refurbishing the vehicles from its overhead,’’ he said.
Shuaibu said with the refund, the council set up a revolving fund strategy for refurbishing other 25 vehicles in its yard.
“Accordingly, 13 more vehicles were refurbished in the second round of the project thereby saving over N100 million for the administration.
“Nine more refurbished vehicles will be commission, the repairs only cost the council N6.7 million, saving the council the sum of N72 million, using the same strategy,’’ he added.
The coordinator said the heavy duty equipment and machinery that were grounded for a long period due to paucity of funds were refurbished and put back to use.
He noted that with more vehicles and equipment refurbished, the council now engages in more enforcement activities while the cost of hiring the equipment was eliminated.===NAN
