Ebonyi capital city master plan ready soon

THE Ebonyi state government said it will soon unveil the state capital territory master plan to guide its current developmental strides as well as the operations of residents/private individuals in the state.
The Chairman, Abakaliki Capital Territory Development Board, ACTDB, Elder Fred Udeogu disclosed this in Abakaliki when members of the state Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union Of Journalists, NUJ, paid him a courtesy visit in his office.
Elder Udeogu explained that the board, immediately it was reconstituted, swung into action by setting up a machinery which came up with a master plan/blue print for the development of the capital city.
He said the master plan will soon be presented to Governor David Umahi for approval before it will be made public; just as he added that the plan when implemented would invalidate the manner structures are presently built in the capital city.
“We have been able to set up a machinery that gave us a blue print within this little period of time but we are yet to present it to the governor for his approval before we make it public”, he said.
He said with the recent amendment of the ACTDB law, the scope of the Board has been expanded with a full time board Chairman, Secretary and Members unlike in the past when it was a part-time membership board with a General Manager as the administrative head.
Udeogu, who pointed out that the past administration left no foundation with which the present administration, on assumption, would have rested upon to develop the capital city, noted that the amendment of the ACTDB law which widened its scope and responsibility was the reason for the headway the board was already making.
He however, noted that there was a master plan by the past administration that had reached 70 percent completion but with the newly enlarged scope of the ACTDB, there was need to amend the master plan hence, the inputs by the present administration.
As for the Centenary city, the ACTDB chairman who said he was not unaware of the earlier master plan also disclosed that plan was underway to redesign it since the scope of the city has been enlarged with new more things added.
The essence of the centenary city is for us to have where we can call the new Abakaliki city because what we call Abakaliki city, the headquarter of Ebonyi state today, was designed as a provincial headquarters that supposed not to accommodate more than five thousand capacity human beings,this is according to Elder Udeogu.
He sought for the cooperation of Journalists in the state in sensitizing the residents on policies and programmes of the state government noting that the cooperation of Journalists was strategic to the success of the board.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Union, Mr Ogodo Jacob noted that the essence of the visit was to formally commend and identify with the state government in its efforts in developing the Abakaliki capital city.