The Lagos State Government is set to unveil a reform that will include the reversal of the Land Use Charge (LUC) to the pre-2018 rate.
Commissioner for Finance in the state, Dr. Rabiu Olowo disclosed this on Wednesday during the 2020 Ministerial Press Briefing marking the first year of Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu in office.
“As we are aware, in 2018, there was an increase in LUC rate and at the same time a revaluation of properties; this twin-shock had a sporadic increase in LUC assessment.
“The soon to be revealed reform will among other things, reverse the rate to pre-2018 rate,” he said.
The commissioner said that the intention of the state government was to keep economic activities of the state going, but without necessarily causing any untold hardship that would further aggravate the present financial hardship faced by all sectors of the state’s economy.
According to Olowo, the pre-2018 charges which will soon come into effect will reflect current realities to reduce burden on citizens.
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His words: The reform also considered a flexible land use charge payment and efficient customer service management to ensure prompt issue resolution.”
On procurement process, he stated that the review was simplified to reduce the bureaucracy in the state procurement process and accommodate small businesses in accordance with the Procurement Law and Guidelines.
According to him, among initiatives put in place in the last one year in the area of revenue optimisation were the deployment of e-tax platform for tax operations, automation of operations of Lagos Lottery Board and FORCE (Focus On Revenue Creation Everywhere).
The commissioner disclosed that the state achieved 106 per cent performance in first quarter of the year’s revenue as against budget.
He pointed out that the twin shock of COVID-19 pandemic and the dwindling oil prices which had affected the state revenue necessitated the review of the year’s budget.
