The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Nyesom Wike on Monday announced the shutdown of the popular International Conference Centre (ICC) located at the Area10 area of Garki District.
The minister who made the announcement after a facility tour of the conference centre stated that the FCT administration has awarded a contract to Julius Berger Construction company to renovate the conference centre which he described and not worthy of being called “international.”
Reiterating the position of the minister, the Director of Press in the Office of the Minister, Anthony Ogunleye stated that the minister has terminated the contract of Messrs Integrated Facility Management Services Ltd who were hitherto managers of the facility.
Speaking to journalists after the tour of the conference centre, Mr. Wike said, “There is nothing international about the centre.
When we came here for the ECOWAS inauguration sometime last week, with President Bola Tinubu, no right-thinking human being would see the state of this facility and be happy.
“In fact, during the inauguration, Tinubu drew my attention to the rot. Even the lighting system was so poor.
“This is unacceptable. There is no way we can accept this as an International Conference Centre.
“You cannot call it a conference centre but not international, because there is no standard compared to any international conference centre”.
“So, we are sorry to announce this; every booking made here is cancelled
“We will start immediate rehabilitation of the centre to meet up with international standards,” the minister said.
“We believed that in the next seven to eight months, the company would do something that Nigerians and the international community would appreciate.”