Lagos internally generated revenue rises by N37b, hits N436.3b

Votes N200 billion for redevelopment of Ilubirin Housing Estate
The Lagos State Government has said that its internally generated revenue (IGR), increased by N36.9 billion to N436.3 billion in 2016 from N399.4 billion in 2015.

The Commissioner for Finance, Akinyemi Ashade, said this yesterday at a press briefing to mark the second year anniversary of Governor Akinwumi Ambode’s assumption of office.

Ashade said that the state realised N7 billion from Land Use Charge (LUC) in 2016, N1 billion higher than the N6 billion it generated from the charge in 2015.

The commissioner said that one of the innovations was the opening of more payment channels to cater for the large numbers of people that needed to pay the LUC.
Ashade reminded property owners that the LUC was an annual obligation to enable the state government carry out its obligations.

The commissioner further said that the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, LIRS, alone generated N247.022 billion, representing 80 percent of the total IGR.

According to him, the development was due to some strategic revenue reforms by the LIRS which saw about 420, 000 new taxpayers included in the state’s tax net in 2016.

As a result, the number of taxpayers in the state has increased from 4.6 million in 2015 to more than 5 million in 2016.

The state government also disclosed yesterday that it would inject about N200 billion ($500 million) dollars into the Ilubirin Housing Estate new model plan.

The state Commissioner for Housing Mr. Gbolahan Lawal, said the government was putting massive infrastructure in the project to accommodate both residential and commercial purposes.

Lawal, who noted that the government alone couldn’t handle housing project in the state revealed that it would be executed under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme.

The commissioner also informed that the government in partnership with private developers is constructing 20,000 housing units in the next five years under the Lagos affordable public housing (LAPH).

He said the various estates christened Jubilee Housing Estates would be situated at Ijora, Badiya, Imota, Ayobo, Idale (Badagry), Ilamoye –Isolo, Abijo, Tolu (Ajegunle, Abule Ado, Ikota Ibeshe, Owutu and Igbogbo.

Also, the state government’s drive to improve its ease of doing business especially in land documentations has recorded a big boost with the issuance of over 4, 000 electronic Certificates of Occupancy (e-CofO) in the last 28 months.

The breakdown of the figures shows that 2199 certificates were signed in 2015, while 1616 and 483 were signed in 2016 and last four months of the year, respectively.

The Public Affairs Officer of the Lagos Land Bureau, Mr. Kayode Sutton, who disclosed this yesterday said the figure represents an improvement from the manual system, which saw over 14,000 pending uncompleted and abandoned land documentation applications before the introduction of the system.

Sutton said the electronic system introduced by Governor Ambode in 2015 has quickened the ease of doing business in land documentation, removing the bottleneck that hitherto characterised the process

According to him, applicants can now have their Cs of O ready in 30 day if there is no default or error in their applications.

He added that the new electronic C of O is more advantageous as it cannot be easily manipulated like the old ones because of the embedded security chips that make it difficult to be cloned.

Sutton further stressed that the Lagos State Government will gradually phase out the manual system, because they can be tampered with.