The Lagos State House of Assembly on Wednesday admitted including the company, Alpha Beta, as a consultant in the newly passed and signed state’s Land Use Act was an error on their part.
The company name insertion had several people puzzled as to the reason why the company would be contained in the provisions of the Act as a beneficiary under the newly passed legislation.
Chairman, House Committee on Information, Hon. Tunde Braimoh said:
“The process of promulgating the new law is not complete until gazetting when the official copy will be available and the law properly cited.
The correct position will be reflected by then. The process of gazetting itself is being expedited in view of these issues,” said the Chairman.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Commissioner for Finance, Mr Akinyemi Ashade, shed light why the land use charge was based on the market value of a property.
According to him, the state government adopted this decision due to the cost of building houses differing according to the area. He was of the opinion each property needed to be valued according to its location, in order to arrive at a standardized, progressive and rational rate for everyone.
“For people saying the use of market value should not be the basis for deriving the LUC rate, we ask, what better application should be used? asked Shade.
The commissioner said the Law provided automatic 40 per cent off the value of an assessed property in addition to several other reliefs which property owners were advised to take advantage of as an incentive to prompt payments of charges as at when due.
Kehinde Bamigbetan, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, noted that the frenzy over the law was unfair to the government and grossly uncalled for because the law underwent a long process of deliberations before being passed into effect by the State House of Assembly.
“The fact is that this law took a long process to be made. It started as a bill and went through the First Reading, Second Reading and a Public Hearing to which all stakeholders were brought together to debate it and some of the and some of the reliefs we have seen were part of the debate expressed by the stakeholders about the need to protect the vulnerable segment of the society. Having made the Law, the Lagos State House of Assembly has handed it over to the executive to implement.”
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