By Dennis Agbo
The Enugu State Internal Revenue Service, ENIRS, has said that from June 1 2024, it will begin collection of Land Use Charge in all the 800,000 properties it has enumerated in all the 17 local government areas of the state.
Chairman of the Service, Mr. Emmanuel Nnamani who made the disclosure in a press briefing in Enugu, on Wednesday, stated that the state government targets to rake in over N20 billion from the tax system, in the remaining part of the year, which he stressed is different from ground rents payable to land owners such Ministry of Lands or Housing Development Corporations.
Nnamani said that the Geographic Information System, GIS, was used to capture the affected properties in the state, including ancestral homes in the villages that will all pay the Land Use Charge or would be compelled by revenue courts or other forms of enforcements such as sealing of affected properties or revocations.
He explained that whereas highbrow areas in the urban cities such as GRA, New Haven or Independence layout will pay higher charges, suburbs such as Abakpa or Emene will pay lesser amounts of money in the 56 categorized zones in the state.
According to Nnamani, “The Land Use Charge is the main stay of the economy which was not scaled up but the Governor has directed that we should scale it up and what we did was to buy into the GIS that showed all the properties in Enugu state, within the metropolises and even in the villages.
“All the properties in our state now have identifiable head counts and have been programmed into the system. The GIS will help us to generate demand notices, identify each property in the state. The Governor promised a disruptive innovation and the GIS is part of that for management of our land properties.
“The GIS that we want to launch on June 1will also help us in the near future to enable citizens apply for Certificate of Occupancies without going to the ministry of Lands.
“Earlier than now the land use charge was essentially paid by commercial bodies but now the fee applicable to each property is dependent on the value of the land in that particular location. The charge is categorized into residential, industrial and commercial areas. While the charge for properties in GRA areas is fairly over N200,000; Trans Ekulu areas is about N76,000 per annum, and the charge in Abakapa is about N36,000.” (Vanguard)
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