A youth organization, Congress of Progressive Youth (CPY), has tasked the Landlords and property owners in Lagos to key into the good initiative of the state Governor, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu aimed at ameliorating the suffering of the people through his recently reviewed Land Use Charge.
Leader of the group, Comrade Adebayo Oyenekan, in a press release said as the direct beneficiaries of the review, the Landlord should be patriotic enough to complement the good gesture of Governor Sanwo-Olu by reducing their rents to conform with the Sanwo-Olu’s magnanimity.
Oyenekan said his group appreciated the burden the Land Use Charge had put on the land owners before the recent Sanwo-Olu’s review saying, “since to who more is given, more is expected, we challenge the land lords to also shelve some of the rent burden their tenants are currently bearing.”
According to the statement, the step taken on the Land Use Charge that has proven Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu as a listening and responsive administrator deserved to be reciprocated adequately by those who are direct beneficiaries of the largesse, asserting that, it is through the support and cooperation of the landlords and other stakeholders that would make the governor’s good gesture more meaningful and all encompassing.
It could be recalled that, the Lagos State Government has cancelled the 2018 land use charge and reverted to pre-2018 land use charges thereby reducing some financial and economic burden the review has put off the head of the property owners in the state.
The Government’s review, as communicated to the people by the Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Rabiu Olowo, through a media chat where disclosed that he government has also waived penalties for land use charge for 2017, 2018 and 2019, which according to him, translateed to a loss of revenue amounting to N5.6bn for the state.
In 2018, during the immediate past administration there was an outrageous increase in the Land Use Charge rate as well as the method of valuation of properties that had a sporadic increase in Land Use Charge payable by property owners.
It was the outrageous increase that Sanwo-Olu has reversed to the pre-2018 while upholding the affordable and payable amount of the pre-2018 and upholding the 2018 method of valuation.
It is in the light of this that the youthful activist tasked the land/property owners to contribute their own quotas to the success of this administration through making their tenants to have the feel of the Sanwo-Olu’s magnanimity with a view to making the largesse reach the grassroots.
