Property Owners in Lagos will soon experience great relief as the Lagos State Government revealed its plan to revert to the pre-2018 land use charge rate.
This was disclosed by the commissioner for finance, Dr. Rabiu Olowo at the year 2020 Ministerial Briefing marking the first year anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in office which held at the JJT Park, Alausa, Ikeja on Wednesday.
According to him, the state government had to review the increase in land use charge assessment to accommodate the agitations of Lagosians and to lessen the financial pressure on citizens as regards to land use charge.
He said the pre-2018 charges which will soon come into effect will reflect current realities to reduce burden on citizens.
“The reform also considered a flexible land use charge payments and efficient customer service management in other to ensure prompt issue resolution,” the commissioner said.
He also disclosed that the intention of the government is to keep economic activities in the state going, without necessarily causing any untold hardship that will further aggravate the present financial hardship confronting all sectors of the state’s economy.
Speaking further, Olowo said among initiatives put in place in the last one year in the area of revenue optimization are: deployment of e-tax platform for tax operations and administration matters, automation of operations of Lagos Lottery Board and FORCE, conceived to monitor, review and drive innovative revenue performance whilst providing revenue assurance.
Revealing that the state achieved 106 per cent performance in first quarter of year2020 revenue as against budget, the commissioner added that the double shock of COVID-19 pandemic and the dwindling oil prices which has affected the state revenue called for the review of the year 2020 budget.
He said: “The direct impact of the pandemic is a drop in the state’s IGR and Federal Allocation which also results in decline of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and increased pressure on income and purchasing power of Lagosians”.
