Gabriel Enenche —
Concerns have been raised in real estate sector over poor supervision and requisite punishment for defaulters who fail in adhering to the rules guiding the industry.
Recently, during a two-day workshop organized by the Federal House of Representative Ad-hoc Committee on Mass Housing/Real Estate Development in the FCT held to investigate operations of real estate developers in the nation’s capital, Abuja, the Chairman, Mrs. Blessing Onyeche Onuh, said that the city has been losing an estimated huge sum of N600 billion annually in revenue accruable to it from the real estate sector.
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The workshop Onuh said is to discuss the economy of the real estate industry.
We shall clearly articulate the value chain in this multi-trillion naira industry and identify why the FCT has not been getting its fair share, she admitted.
“This committee’s preliminary findings indicated that the FCT has been losing an estimated N600 billion annually in revenues accruable to it from the real estate sector.
“Take for example a house or land is sold for N500 million, the lawyer gets his legal fee, the agent gets his brokerage fee, the bank gets its transaction charges and the government gets nothing if the transaction is not presented for registration.
“And this kind of transactions go on in volumes every day unregulated, leaving government with the perennial struggles of meeting up its responsibility of providing modern amenities for its people. Many of these transactions are done in cash making the industry a safe haven for money laundry and illicit financial flows. The time to change the narratives is now”, she noted.
She further said that shelter or housing is the next most important need of man next to food. And the alarming housing shortage in the FCT and expected role of the Mass housing sub-sector to address the problem is key.
In concurrence also, the FCT Minister, Muhammad Musa Bello reacted by vowing to deal ruthlessly with fraudulent developers in Abuja.
And as quoted by The Sun, according to Mr. Kabir Matungo, an estate developer based in Jos, Plateau State, a loss of N600 billion that does not include loss of lives is unacceptable to the Nigerian populace. “We cannot continue to lose lives and property in situations that are highly avoidable. It all means that government is not doing enough to safeguard the lives and property of its citizens.
“If we calculate lives lost through terrorist attacks, lives lost through accidental discharges, lives lost through overzealous officers of the Nigeria Police and other forces not to include those that died in the hands of ritualists”, he said.
