Well over 8,000 property owners owe Land Use Charge in FCT amounting to several trillions of naira according to the recent newspaper advertisements. This statistics are staggering especially considering the near insolvent state of the economy both at the national and the subnational levels.
It beggars belief that a nation being owned by corporate and private entities most of whom are well to do by virtue of their ownership of assets in the FCT would rather resort to borrowing binge to the extent that national debts have surpassed the manageable threshold.
The most pathetic case is that of Lagos State which has more landed properties and built assets clustered across the landscape and has now added the Eko Atlantic to the state’s real sector frontier.
Lagos IGR though higher than that of most states in the federation is still abysmal judging by the cosmopolitan taxonomy of its revenue base, the demographics of its population and the industrial amplitude of its landscape.
Lagos revenue if well calibrated should compete neck and neck with the non-oil receipts from the rest of the 35 states put together. However this has never been for lack of deliberate policy to reform land-use and turn thousands of redundant assets into revenue streams.
One example of revenue gap that could transit Lagos from being the most indebted state in the federation to a more competitive financial hub exemplifying the exceptional economy of California in the United States is the revenue receipts from Land Use Charge.
There is no doubt that just like in FCT, the logistics and the enforcement of land use charge in Lagos are very problematic with corruption as one of the bane of its success. This is however the turf of a determined and a result oriented governor or a minister willing to transform the ecosystems of governance.
With the just announced revocation of over 600 undeveloped parcels of land in the FCT, many of which have been left fallow for decades, the minster of FCT, Bar Nyesom Wike has just put the FCT on a development trajectory that is in tandem with the rest of the world.
Coming home to Lagos, Section 9 of the Lagos Land Use Charge Law of 2018 states as follows:
(1) The owner of a property or occupier of a lease of less than ten (10) years is liable to pay Land Use Charge in respect of a taxable properly.
(2) The Occupier holding a lease of ten (10) years and above is liable to pay Land Use Charge in respect of any taxable Property.
The holder of a certificate of occupancy is deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions attached to it, which are enforceable against himself and his successors in title. These include:
•Payment of penal rent for breaching any covenant or condition such as failing to effect improvements on the land or alienating the land or any part thereof without the consent of the governor. (s. 5(1e and f))
•Payment to the governor for any unexhausted improvements of the land existing on the land at the date of entering the occupation. (s. 10(a))
•Payment of rent as prescribed under the act from time to time. (s. 10(b))
•Allowing the governor or his agent access to the land for purposes of inspection during the daytime. (s. 11)
•To maintain in good and substantial repairs all beacons or other landmarks defining the boundary granted under the certificate of occupancy and in default shall be liable to bear the expenses of doing same. (s. 13)
•The land covered by the certificate of occupancy cannot be alienated without the prior consent of the governor, otherwise, such alienation shall have no effect. (s. 22).
It is indeed a consternating oxymoron that successive administrations in Lagos State have watched the extant provisions observed in their breach.
This executive laxity is akin to giving owners of oil wells the right of ownership in perpetuity even when there are no attempts to explore crude oil that can trigger productive value chain in the oil sector.
Just like crude oil, interests in land are known to yield intrinsic value chains where their multiplier effects lead to appreciable job creation, poverty alleviation, expansion in housing delivery and so forth.
This complacent approach of Lagos State Government to what is the mainstay of the economy has encouraged land speculators to drive the price of land and buildings beyond the reach of buyers, developers and other players in the productive sector.
Wike having initiated the process of putting these racketeering in abeyance in Abuja, we hope Lagos state would be dutiful enough to follow suit otherwise Lagosians would be left to believe that land administration in Lagos is an intractable conundrum left at the mercy of racketeers and disruptive spectators.
THE NATION
