By Matthew Denis
The Chairman of Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Kwara State branch, Mr. Lanre Hassan has said that the state government is yet to fully explore revenue derivation from the land administration.
The Chairman stated this during an interview with Pilot Business shortly after the association’s road walk in Ilorin recently.
He said, “It is very unfortunate that the government of Kwara State is not serious about harnessing the potentials and the opportunity in land administration.
“We tried to partner with the government in assisting them to unveil such revenue, but we don’t know what happened and they are not willing to pay for the services. I want to assure the government that we’re ready to partner with them to help tap revenue.
“We wanted to even form synergy with the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) but along the line we couldn’t forge ahead. We believe government needs to engage experts to follow the right trend in getting it right.”
Hassan suggested that the state government should engage the NIESV through Public Private Partner (PPP) in improving land administration.
“Government should engage more in rendering social responsibility programmes to satisfy the people.
He complained that people who key into the mass titling scheme of the state government for about a year are yet to benefit from the subsidy as promised by the present administration, noting that the people handling the programme do not have the required skill.
On quackery he said, “We are sensitising the public to always patronise consultants for professional services to avoid being victims of fraudsters.
“It is obvious that quackery is everywhere as a result of unemployment and we have tried to look at it at the national level. We created a platform called Association of Estate Agents of Nigeria to capture the categories of people without formal training but found themselves in the business. So we try to give them orientation on two areas of estate management because they can’t do valuation and feasibility.
The Chairman then called on the public to take advantage by enrolling in these areas to give them a sense of belonging instead of engaging in the business without having requisite skills.
