Property owners in Lagos to smile as the Lagos State government is reverting to the pre-2018 land use charge rate.
The state Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Rabiu Olowo, disclosed this at the 2020 Ministerial Briefing marking the first year anniversary of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in office.
He said that the state government had to review the increase in land use charge assessment to accommodate the agitations of Lagosians and reduce the financial pressure on citizens as it relates to land use charge.
According to him, 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 to ensure prompt issue resolution,” the commissioner said.
He said that the intention of the government was to keep economic activities in the state going without necessarily causing any hardship that would further aggravate the present financial hardship confronting all sectors of the state’s economy.
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.
The commissioner also revealed that the state achieved 106 per cent performance in first quarter of year 2020 revenue as against budget.
Besides, he said that the twin shock of covid-19 pandemic and the dwindling oil prices which has affected the state revenue necessitating the review of the year 2020 budget.
“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,” Olowo said.
