Nairametrics| If the Permanent Secretary, Common Services Office in the office of the Head of Service (HoS), Yemi Adelakun has his way, Abuja residents should not be made to pay rent on an annual or biennial basis, but rather on a monthly basis.
According to Adelakun, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Administration should emulate Lagos State and take bold steps to make laws restricting payment of one or two years rent in Abuja by tenants. He stated this at the weekend while responding to questions by The Guardian in Abuja.
He said ““The rent law in Lagos is very unique and I believe the authority of the FCT Administration has the possibility too to do that because it’s a major discussion and has a major disadvantage to workers who collect their salaries on a monthly basis but are required to pay rents on yearly basis by their landlords and in some cases, they ask you to pay two years’ rent. This is a major problem and this has to be addressed. The government, through some persuasions, can get landlords to be more humane in their demand of rents from tenants.”
According to him, demanding annual rent from workers who are paid monthly and in fact the practice of prepaid collection of rent were detrimental to the welfare of the tenants and ways to soften the effect should be devised.