Following Massive Land Scam in FCT...
EFCC to Quiz Gov, Senators, Ex-Ministers
FG approves new allocation formula
From Josephine Lohor in Abuja
Top public officers, including a serving governor, senators and former ministers and governors have been invited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to answer questions that border on land fraud in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Minister of the FCT, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, who disclosed this yesterday while briefing State House correspondents on how far his ministry had gone in sanitising the FCT, said apart from one Engineer Success who was "being prosecuted because he was operating a parallel ministry" by issuing certificates of occupancy and rights of officers, "very many important people have been invited by the EFCC to give evidence because of their involvement."
"Those involved are mostly senators, former ministers, a couple of former governors and one serving governor among others. Then, in Kubwa, we had another man called Alhaji Kamba who specialised in illegal allocation. He is still at large," he added. The minister did not, however, name the public officers concerned.
El-Rufai, who noted that the extent of land racketeering in the FCT was "amazing," also said "we are currently prosecuting about a dozen members of staff engaged in fraud to the tune of N200 million. The fraud includes attempts to divert our cheques to open account in community banks in the name of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) and sharing the money among them."
"We asked the president who said the EFCC will come to help us. So, they have a branch in the FCT and they have already arrested so many people involved in the racketeering," he added.
El-Rufai, while giving further insight into the involvement of the top officials, stated that "a few of the senators were actually duped. But a few of them, we suspect, were part of the problem. But that is not relevant. What is relevant is that whoever has a house on a plot of land that he got by that system, with no title, will have to pay the government the value we have placed on the building after he has packed out for some few days. We will give him the right of first refusal, but if you find out that they are also involved in the scam, they will be prosecuted. Nobody is above the law."
The minister also revealed that the Federal Government has approved a new land allocation formula in the FCT with 60 per cent of the plots allocated to be based on equality of 37 states which include FCT assuming the status of a state; 20 per cent would be at the minister's discretion; 10 per cent reserved for public servants resident in Abuja and not occupying government quarters and 10 per cent based on population.
He noted that President Olusegun Obasanjo had since 2001 directed that the FCT Ministry compiles a land register, a directive which, however, "never got off ground until September 2003 when we signed the contract with Julius Berger in 2003 to do the computerisation for N265 million."
"The completion of this computerisation now reveals so many things which I have presented to the FEC (Federal Executive Council). We saw for instance, that there were 866 cases of double or multiple allocation.
"We also found that we have in our records 105,000 applications for land and 85,000 of these were unattended to. We also found 2,149 cases of multiple plot numbering and 119 cases of multiple file numbering. We also found that there were rampant cases of forgeries and fraud as well as theft of our files. So, if you want somebody's land, you arranged for the file to be stolen and then in our record, you will say the plot is available," he said.
The minister also explained that "though we have so far demolished more than 300 buildings in the FCT, we still have another 2,000 to demolish. In Kubwa, about 500 buildings are on their way down. Also, we found poor revenue generation and fraud. Because our records are bad, we could not even generate revenue. When we do, sometimes the revenue get diverted by our staff."
On the case of Engr. Success who is presently being prosecuted, el-Rufai said "from the evidence the FCT got, he had the stamps of the minister, he had the capability to sign everybody's signatures. He was issuing Right of Offers (RO's), he was issuing certificates of occupancy. His printing press in Kaduna that was shut down was printing the exact replica of our certificate of occupancy. He is in custody now and a few of our staff that were in collaboration have also been arrested and very important people have been invited by the EFCC to give evidence because of their involvement."
Since his assumption as FCT minister June last year, el-Rufai had vowed to restore the Federal Capital Territory to its original masterplan. He said the masterplan had been altered by indiscriminate allocation of land and building of structures.
He also initiated a campaign in which many of the unapproved buildings belonging to influential people in society were demolished.
Also, last month the FCT withdrew all certificates of occupancy on land in the territory alleging gross malpractice in the process of issuance and allocation of plots of land.
|
