Kogi targets N1b revenue from land charges, taxes

THE Kogi State government said it is targeting about N1 billion as revenue from documents and titles on land across the State following the digitalisation of the process.

Besides, it also lamented that only 1000 certificates of Occupancy (C of O) were issued in the first 26 years of the state by successive administrations.

The director general, lands and housing services bureau, Hajiya Maryam Ibrahim, who said this during an interaction with newsmen in Lokoja, the state capital, said the money is expected to be generated from payment for titles on government and private lands.

She said it was worrisome that many of the buildings in major towns of the state are without documents, saying the government was ready to ensure that landed properties and buildings in the state are covered.

According to her, the investigation by the government had shown that many of the documents being claimed to be in existence were forged and dangerous to be used to secure facilities from financial institutions.

She, however, said the government had directed all the banks operating in the state to present the CofO that had been used to obtain loans from their institutions for re-certification.

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Ibrahim added that the reinvigorated bureau of land in the state had already captured 200, 000 lands documents from the analogue system being operated before.

Speaking on the efforts at improving the service, she said, “Previously you will see land hustlers around but I must say that to a very great extent, we have put that to rest. As I said, if you do things right, and you are transparent in what you do, it will be difficult for some of those sharp practices to happen,” she said.

On revenue generations, she said “we have had a lot of drive. Under the Property Owners Express, if people key in, we will be targeting between 500m to one billion naira would come in for the state government.

“In the nearest future, this could be our oil. For the few months that we have been in operation, just on the GIS alone, about 20m has been generated.

“That’s aside from the ground rents and other charges. In all, we have raked in between N300 m and 400m or thereabouts. All that we generate go directly into the internal revenue account of the government.”