By Aliyu DANLADI
The Federal Government says it has approved and issued 1,300 Certificates of Occupancy (C of O) to owners of verified federal government land as at October 25, 2018.
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this at a news conference in Abuja on Monday.
Fashola said the approval and issuance of the certificates were part of government’s effort at tackling the backlog of issuance of consent and certificates of occupancy on federal government lands.
“A total of 1,216 application for consent to transfer interests in land application and 1,300 certificates of occupancy have been approved and signed respectively as at 25th October 2018.
“Some of these transactions started over a decade ago and those just getting certificates acquired their properties years back but never got title,” the minister said.
He said government had also implemented housing policies like the reduction of equity contribution from five per cent to zero per cent for those seeking mortgage loans of up to five million naira.
The minister said reduction from 15 per cent to 10 per cent for those seeking loans over five million naira was helping to ease access to housing.
He said the full implementation of the national housing programme by the current administration had resulted in a nationwide housing construction in 34 states where no less than 1,000 people were being employed on each site.
The minister said the housing sites had become an ecosystem of human enterprise, where artisans, vendors, suppliers and craftsmen converge to partake of opportunities and contribute to nation building.
On metering of electricity consumers through Meter Asset Providers Scheme,(MAP), Chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission,(NERC), Prof. James Momoh, said the commission had issued licenses to 108 meter provider companies.
He said the companies would work with different DisCos to provide meters for Nigerians, adding that the companies would actively begin operations for meter supply through the DisCos before first quarter of 2019.
”I believe this is the right thing to do, hopefully before the first quarter of the year 2019, we will begin to see this several providers of this meters in business,” Momoh said.
On tarrif adjustment, Momoh said there were factors to be determined before coming up with adjustment of the electricity tariff.
“We cannot give you the actual tariff adjustment without provision of meters. We will have to put all the factors together before we can determine how much consumers can pay,” he said.
He said it was important to address the issue of technical, commercial losses, ensure proper enumeration of customers before coming up with any tarriff adjustment.
He said it was fair to allow more meter coverage of customers before determining adjustment on unit price of electricity.
