Nigeria: Senator Bala Mohammed, Minister of FCT, Nigeria, has disclosed plans by his administration to upgrade the FCT Land Administration Department into a full fledged Secretariat. According to the minister, the move aims to assist in repositioning all land related Departments and Agencies for better service delivery, greater performance and efficiency.
The Minister also revealed that there will be strict action against all corrupt officials in the Land Administration Department and Abuja Geographic Information Systems. He advocated the interconnectivity between all bodies with land administration responsibilities like Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS), the Departments of Land Administration, Mapping & Survey, Urban & Regional Planning, as well as Development Control respectively, through the internet, to allow free flow of information on the status of any plot and title documents.
The minister explained that the connection would avail all these bodies a means to cross check and confirm any title without delay, thereby fast tracking the entire, process of the building plan approval and reduction in the cases of double allocation. Senator Mohammed assured that he was not the part of the land scam; emphasising that all injustices perpetuated in the past will be redressed.
He disclosed that in order to buttress the good intention of the government in this direction, the office of the FCT Surveyor-General will also be established to sanitise the sub-sector. On high cost of rent in the FCT, the minister noted that the FCT Administration was already doing something about it but challenged property lawyers to come up with a draft bill to the National Assembly for passage into law to curb the trend.
Source: All Africa
