Expect ground rent hike, Wike tells Abuja property owners

The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has said his administration is working towards increasing the cost of ground rent in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

Wike told journalists, while inspecting ongoing projects, that the refusal to pay ground rent and other taxes by property owners has been his greatest challenge in office.

Our correspondent reports that Wike, on assumption of office, had prioritised revenue generation, mainly from landed properties, to fund infrastructural development in the nation’s capital.

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His aggressive approach on this, however, attracted more criticism from not only property owners but also political opponents.

The FCT administration, under his watch, had in March announced the revocation of over 4700 properties in Abuja for not paying ground rent, amounting to over N6 billion.

On Monday, the administration began sealing up the affected properties, which included the National Secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party, the National Agency for Trafficking in Persons, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, a branch of Access Bank and a TotalEnergies Filling Station, among others.

The leadership of the PDP and the FIRS had challenged the actions of the Wike-led FCTA, describing it as unprofessional and an affront to the country’s democracy.

Abuja Metro reports that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, however, intervened by approving a 14-day grace period within which the amounts owed should be paid, as well as penalties of between N2 million and N3 million, depending on their location.

Addressing journalists after inspecting ongoing projects in Abuja, Wike lamented that while residents wanted infrastructure in the FCT, they failed to support the government by paying their taxes, noting that many of the debtors owed as many as 20 years, even though the ground rent has remained the same for many years.

He said, “My greatest challenge are the people refusing to pay their money. I will speak on that in the next media chat. And people just want facilities, people want infrastructure. But nobody asks, ‘Where are you getting these funds from?’ Abuja is not one of the oil cities, we only rely on taxes. These are not new taxes. These are taxes that have been there for years.

‘’It is unfortunate that most elites own houses overseas. They know the implication of not paying taxes; they know such houses are gone. But when it comes to your own country, you don’t want to do that, simply because nobody wants to obey the law; everybody thinks there are no sanctions.

‘’Look at the years, 20-something years, 30-something years. And how much is it? We have not increased the ground rent, but we are working towards that; we will do that, I can assure you. The president has given a waiver of two weeks. Let nobody think that blackmail or whatever will stop us, we will do what we are supposed to do,” he stated.

The minister also said he had recently signed over 1,500 Certificates of Occupancy and Deeds of Assignment and encouraged residents to pay their taxes and ground rents to aid developments in the FCT.

“If you pay tax, you will see that it will be a different thing. And that’s what we are trying to do,” he added.