FG urges Senate to direct query on N6trn unpaid ground rent to OSGF

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola has urged the Senate Ad hoc Committee investigating the N6 trillion unpaid ground rent to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF).

Fashola said this when the Senate ad hoc committee chaired by Sen. Adamu Aliero (PDP-Kebbi) visited the ministry on Wednesday.

It was reported that the Senate had on March 29, 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.

The motion was moved by Sen. Yusuf Yusuf (PDP-Taraba).

Fashola, during the meeting, told the Senate committee that the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) that issued receipts on the property, was under the purview of the SGF and not his ministry.

The minister said that he only knew about the activities of the PIC after requests were forwarded to him to sign Certificate of Occupancy on the property.

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 are vested in the President for land belonging to 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 and they are in the SGF office and that they report to the presidency.

“So, as far as your letter seeks to ask us to account for the PIC, they don’t report to us.

“I will advise that you direct your enquires about what the PIC does to the SGF since the organisation does not report to me, I cannot account for them.”

He said that most of the C-of-Os that he had signed were the pending requests dating back to 15, 20 years.

“In the last few years, some CofOs that have come to me, I have issued queries about them about the way payment was done,” he said.

Aliero, while briefing reporters after the meeting, said that his panel would engage the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) over the disposal of federal government ground rent next week.

He said that about N18 billion had been recovered and that efforts are being made to collect the balance.

Aliero said: “They explained to us how much has been collected so far. They have close to N18 billion and efforts are been 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,”he said.

He assured 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.

“You will agree with me that in this era of revenue shortfall and 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 incidence of borrowing by the federal government.”