Pay ground rent within 60days— FG threatens to revokes CofOs from defaulters

Mashe Umaru Gwamna

The Federal Government has given a 60-day notice to owners of its Certificate of Occupancy (CofO) to comply with the payment of ground rent as well as statutory charges or risk having their CofOs revoked.
This was contained in a press statement signed and issued by Director, Information and Public Relations, Salisu Badamasi Haiba.
It said Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa sounded the warning in a keynote address at the 29th Conference of Directors of Lands in the Federal and States’ Ministries, Departments and Agencies,yesterday in Abuja .
The theme for the 29th conference is “Equitable Land Stewardship: Challenges of Land Administration and its Impact on Climate Change and Community Rights”.
The Minister decried the failure of owners of titled properties to pay ground rent and other statutory charges to the Ministry for several years now, saying that such acts hampers the ability of the government to maximize the revenue earning potential of its landed assets.
“This non-compliance has resulted in the loss of trillions of naira in revenue to the Federal Government. Under the Renewed Hope Agenda of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed, Tinubu, this cannot be tolerated as this revenue is much needed to deliver the Renewed Hope Agenda to Nigerians”, he added.
In addition, Dangiwa also warned that the refusal of some residents association of Federal Government landed properties to allow staff of the Ministry access to their various estates for billing purposes and enforcement of non-payments as outlined in their respective C of Os, would attract appropriate penalties and sanctions going further.
While admitting that the level of land administration was still in a state of emergency with issues such as the obsolete Land Use Act of 1978, lengthy, expensive, and complicated land titling and registration processes, limited access to land information, Conflicting land laws and policies, lack of formal land titles, among others, Dangiwa stated that Ministry has prioritized land governance issues and taken significant steps to make a difference.

Accordingly, the minister outlined some of the steps such as the establishment of a new regime of revised rates for crops and economic trees that is fair, equitable, and provides adequate compensation to persons affected by government projects, formulation of Land Reforms Task Team to critically review, audit, and develop approaches to operationalize the Land Use Act.

In addition to this, he revealed that the Land Reform task force has prepared a preliminary report that highlights the need for the establishment of a National Land Commission as the launch point for implementing the Land Use Act and ensuring the synchronization of state land registries.

Other steps taken are the upscaling of the Electronic Certificate of Occupancy (e-C of O) and Land Titling System that incorporates a web-based Advanced Workflow System (WNABS) and an Electronic Documentation Management System (EDMS) for all federal government-owned lands in the 36 states of the country.