We captured 7,000 tenants during railway property audit ― MD

The Managing Director of the Railway Property Management Company Limited, Mr Timothy Zalanga, said the agency has captured 7,000 tenants in the verification exercise embarked on by his agency.

He made this known during a news conference held at its headquarters in Kaduna on Thursday.

Zalanga said the railway management decided to set up a task force in order to audit its property nationwide.

“Railway is one of the largest owners of landed property in the country. However, over the years the status of our lands and property could not be authenticated.

“So for the past three years, we have made conscious efforts to build up the property register by extension the tenant register too.

“On the one hand, we want to know how many properties we have, while on the hand we want to know who are the tenants that we allocated our lands.

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“Going back to the tenants too, we want to see who are our good tenants paying their rents as and when due as well as to know our tenants who are not paying their rents.

“But beyond that we want to know who are the illegal occupants of railway lands and who are encroaching on our lands nationwide,” he said.

To this end, he called on members of the public who are illegally occupying railway lands and landed properties to regularise their stay or risk ejection.

“Also, those claiming ownership of railway lands and landed properties should desist from such claims,” he added.

The MD disclosed that the ongoing property audit has given them the leeway to see quite a number of these defaulters.

“At the end of audit, we have so far identified 7,000 tenants who are now captured in our computer. We believe we could have more,” he noted.

While advising allottees of railway lands to settle their rental obligations, the MD stated that all those performing businesses along railway corridors should seek for clearance or risk ejection.

“And any illegal transfer to third parties will equally face revocation of allocation,” he declared.