Mohammed Shosanya
Property owners across the country owed the federal government the sum of N6trillion in ground rent.
The Senate,on Tuesday,mandated its committee to investigate and recover the accrued debt from the property owners
The Adhoc committee setup by the Senate to recover the money, is also mandated to investigate the inability of Federal Ministry of Works and Housing to investigate and recover these incomes for the government.
The Senate,which also advocated the need for a comprehensive data of federal government property, is also to investigate the circumstances that led to the inability of the land use act allocation committee, saddled with the responsible of handing rent and licence matter, to carry out their responsibility on the matter.
The resolution of the Senate was sequel to a motion by Senator Yusuf Abubakar Yusuf (APC, Taraba Central) .
Coming under orders 41 and 51 of the Senate Standing Rules, the lawmaker noted that the Land Use Act has vested ownership rights on the Federal Government over its land in states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The rights include 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.
Yussuf lamented that since 1992, over two million houses across the 36 states of the federation, including FCT have been built and allocated to beneficiaries by the federal government, yet majority have no evidence of payment of ground rent on their properties.
According to him,with the current revenue challenges facing the country, there is a need for the government to look into other means of generating income than relying on oil revenue.
He stated that investigation reveals that failure of relevant authorities to recover these funds has led the country to loosing over six trillion naira.
Some of the senators who spoke, called on the federal government to come up with a computerized system where all allotted lands and properties, persons yet to pay and fashion out mode of recovering these funds .
They expressed the need for a comprehensive data of federal government property that are sold to the public under the ministry of works and housing across the country.
Members of the committee include, Adamu Aliero (PDP, Kebbi Central ), Sani Musa (APC, Niger East), Sam Egwu (PDP, Ebonyi North), Smart Adeyemi (APC, Kogi West ), Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti Central ), Betty Apiafi (PDP, Rivers West) and Yusuf Abubarkar Yusuf (APC, Taraba Central).
