We have a human approach to taxation in Oyo State — Land Commissioner
The honourable commissioner of Lands, Housing and Urban development, Barrister Abiodun Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Raheem said in an exclusive interview with Nigerian NewsDirect reporters said that Oyo state has a human approach to taxation and assured that all sort of bottlenecks along that line will be removed.
Abdul-Rahman said, “Oyo State is an emerging market for all sort of developments now. Saying emerging does not however mean it has not been existing; it is emerging because the level we are now shows that we are ready to answer to our name ‘the pace setter’ state in the Country. We want to take benefit of the economic potentials we have in Oyo state and Land is one of the main factors to be precise. We know that in Lagos, because of the situations there; the high cost of living and so on, people will prefer to stay in Ibadan once we are able to settle the issue of the express-road from Ibadan to Lagos and all the bottlenecks are removed. Then, you are aware that we now have Dry Port coming to Ibadan, as well as light train coming to Ibadan from Lagos which will give people the opportunity of being able to afford staying at Ibadan and working in Lagos. So, they will come and start their life again in Ibadan. Now, if you notice, from Wednesday till Sunday, you will see traffic jam in Ibadan because people move down here to have their rest and so on and so forth. It is on this note that i will like to make it known to you that, we on our own part have decided to have some incentives for the people that will be coming to the state.
“One of the incentives is that we are creating a conducive environment for private developers to come on board and then we have a partnering attitude that is well commendable so that the price for the land will not be too high. We will make sure we remove omo-onile (land grabbers) attitude from it, when we acquire the land so they can give us affordable and accessible housing arrangements. Not only that, we have human approach to taxation as well. So, we want to remove all sort of bottlenecks along that line.”
He said, the administration of Gov Oluseyi Makinde is creating GRAs even on the site of the government and they are currently working on two. He noted that recently, one of the GRAs was handed over to a company that is ready to collaborate with Oyo state to provide infrastructures in the state.
He further said, “Within the system here, we have the Housing Home Board that allows civil servants to access loan needed in order to buy land. So, we are doing our best for them. Also, we are encouraging people who have genuine intention to come. So by and large, we are creating a lot of incentives for whoever wants to have a genuine business in the state.”
The commissioner also talked about the issue of Land grabbers.
He said, “We now have Land Grabbers that are extremely professionals. They moved to Oyo state from different states. They are just here to create an impression that we just have to do things in their own way but we have zero-tolerance for such act and we will not allow it happen.”
He said their sector is one of the dependable sources of getting IGR for the state, that through a lot of activities, they generate IGR for the State.
