A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and its Transportation Secretariat, to release details of all revenues generated from operating parking services in the Abuja metropolis.
The suit instituted by the Public and Private Development Centre in April, 2013, followed a refusal by the Federal Capital Territory Administration and it's Transportation Secretariat to provide records of the parking services that it operates through some private sector companies.
Prior to the law suit, PPDC had made an Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the FCTA requesting for details on the number of companies that were engaged by the FCTA for the purpose of controlling parking and collection of parking tolls or fees, the names of the companies and their addresses, the terms of the engagement of each of these companies, the amount remitted by each of these companies since their engagement and a copy of the contract of engagement between the FCTA and each of the companies carrying out parking control and fee collection services on its behalf. PPDC also requested for statements of account showing remittances made by each of the companies from inception of their engagements to date.
The FCTA argued in court that they were willing to provide some of the information requested for but that PPDC failed to fulfil a condition precedent which is payment of the requisite fees before the documents could be handed over to it. However, Justice O.A Adeniyi held that although FCTA is permitted by Section 8 of the Freedom of Information Act to charge fees for documents sought from them, there was no material before the court to show that FCTA informed PPDC of such a requirement and therefore the excuse to pay fees, as contended by FCTA is nothing but an afterthought. The court further held that FCTA had failed to fulfil this obligation to formally communicate to PPDC on the denial of its request or the reasons for the denial nor had any notice of an extension being given as required by Section 6.
Finally, the FCTA argued that the information required is exempted by virtue of Section 15(1) of the FOIA which exempts information containing trade secrets and commercial or financial information that is proprietary, privileged or confidential or where disclosure of such trade secrets or information may cause harm to the interests of the third party provided that nothing contained in this subsection shall be construed as preventing a person or a business from consenting to disclosure.
The court however, did not consider the request to provide details of amounts collected from members of the public as confidential and therefore ruled that the information should be made available.
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