The FCT Minister Muhammad Musa Bello has said that the FCT Administration will provide requisite assistance to the Adamawa State government to enable the State carry out reforms in Land Administration and improve its internally generated revenues.
He made this pledge when a delegation from Adamawa State, led by the Commissioner for Land and Survey, Ibrahim Mijinyawa paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja on Monday.
Bello disclosed that sequel to the ranking of Nigeria as one of the countries with the lowest index in the ease of doing business; the FCT Administration has resolved that the administration of Land in the FCT would be improved to make it transactions user friendly to investors.
The Minister who noted that Adamawa was probably the fourth State that had visited the FCT Administration for the purpose of fine-tuning its Land Administration, advised the State government to send its technical team to understudy the entire Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS), Departments of Land Administration, Mapping & Survey as well as Urban & Regional Planning; adding “We will do what we can to assist you.”
Bello said that the current Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari considers easy Land Administration as one of the very important means in which the country could encourage economic activities and generate revenue, adding, “You can be rest assured that we will support you because supporting you means enhancing the business environment and making easy for everybody in Nigeria.”
“If every state is able to improve its Land Administration and make it easy and very conducive for businesses, it robs on all of us as a country and that goes to improve our rating internationally”.
The FCT Permanent Secretary, Dr. Babatope Ajakiaye who also spoke at the meeting noted that the FCT Administration has been able to develop a robust and versatile way of managing land in Abuja and therefore encouraged them to take time to visit all the land related departments in the FCT to expose themselves to all technicalities.
He assured that the FCT Administration’s technocrats would be willing to impact such know-how in the overall interest of the nation.
Speaking earlier, the Adamawa State Commissioner for Land & Survey, Ibrahim Mijinyawa said that Adamawa State was impoverished as a result of insurgency, hence the need to wake up and look inwards towards developing its internally generated revenues.
He said the State was inspired by the ranking of Abuja as one of the Territories with the best operating system in Land Administration; adding that they would be glad to emulate this system.
“That is why we came to you to get technical assistance and also capacity building, so that when we go back home, after acquainting ourselves with your system, we also can send in our technical officers for them to come to AGIS to learn more on how to operate our system. With this, we believe we can go a long way in improving our system and also get more revenues,” the Commissioner added.
