Article summary
- Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola Presidential said the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) issued receipts on FG-owned property.
- The PIC is not accountable to the Works Ministry, and they report to the presidency.
- Senate Committee revealed N18 billion had been recovered and that efforts are being made to collect the balance.
The Nigerian Government has ordered the Senate ad-hoc committee set up to investigate N6 trillion worth of unpaid land rents owed to the FG to direct their queries to the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF).
The order was given by the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola in a meeting with the Senate ad hoc committee chaired by Sen. Adamu Aliero (PDP-Kebbi) on Wednesday.
The Senate in March, set up an ad hoc committee to investigate and recover the over N6 trillion accrued from the non-payment of ground rent from property owners across the country.
Presidential Implementation Committee
The Minister stated that the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) that issued receipts on the FG properties was under the control of the office of the SGF and not the Works and Housing Ministry.
He added that the activities of the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) are not so transparent, citing that he discovered about the office after requests were forwarded to him to sign a Certificate of Occupancies, he said:
- “About two years or so when they started passing C-of-Os to me to sign and I said where is the delegation?
- Because the power to sign C-of-Os is vested in the President for land belonging to the federal government and in the state governors for lands belonging to the states.
- “In the process, I saw a body called the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC), the body that was supposedly issuing receipts and all of that. Anytime I sought to find this body, nobody showed up.
- “As we are getting close to the end of term, I now formally wrote, I asked the Director of Lands to write them, to ask to tell me what they are doing.
- “They (PIC) replied that they are not accountable to our office they are in the SGF office and that they report to the presidency.
Fashola told the Senate Committee that their letter seeking seeks to account for the PIC, does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Housing Ministry as they have zero control over them, urging the Senate Committee to direct their enquiries about the PIC to the SGF.
FG ground rents
Sen. Adamu Aliero Aliero said that his panel would engage the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) over the disposal of federal government ground rent next week, assuring that his committee would unravel all the property owned and sold by the Federal Government in various states and FCT and the payment mode of the ground rent, he added N18 billion had been recovered and that efforts are being made to collect the balance.
- “They explained to us how much has been collected so far. They have close to N18 billion and efforts are being made to collect the remaining money.
- “Within the next three weeks, we will come back for an update. I’m sure they will be able to collect whatever is due to the federal government on all federal government property either sold or still under the hold of the federal government.”
The Senator also noted that recovering the amount would be beneficial towards boosting Nigeria’s revenue challenges, adding:
- “You will agree with me that in this era of revenue shortfall and the federal government is trying to diversify all sorts of revenue other than oil. When they hear N6 trillion, definitely, a lot of attention will be given to it.
- “I know the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is doing its best to diversify revenue collection. We have a nominal increase from N800 billion in 2017 to over N5 trillion now.
- “If we have ground rent added to it, certainly it will reduce the incidence of borrowing by the federal government.”
Backstory
The Nigerian Senate in March set up an ad hoc committee to recover over N6 trillion unpaid ground rate from property owners in the country, following the adoption of a motion by Sen. Yusuf Yusuf (APC-Taraba).
Yusuf said that the land use act vested ownership rights on the Federal Government over its land in states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), adding that the rights included the power to control and regulate town planning and physical development in relation to such lands and by extension prescribing and collection of any tax, fees or rates.
He urged that since 1992, over two million houses across the 36 states of the federation, including the FCT had been built and allocated to beneficiaries by the federal government, citing that the majority have no evidence of payment of ground rate on their property.