NAN-H-44
Collaboration
By Ella Anokam
Abuja, July 28, 2017 (NAN) A housing expert, Mr Festus Adebayo has called for stronger collaboration between estate developers and anti-graft agencies to tackle fraudulent practices in the housing sector.
Adebayo, the Managing Director of FESADEB Communications Limited, convener of the annual “Abuja Housing Show’’ made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday.
He noted that such collaboration was the best way to tackle some of the sharp practices in the housing, especially those associated with estate development.
According to him, such collaboration will also crackdown estate developers who sell fake houses and are into land racketeering.
He commended efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in tackling the challenges of unoccupied buildings in the country, especially in the FCT, adding that cases of unoccupied houses had drastically reduced under the present administration.
“The case of houses being unoccupied or people using money to tie down houses has drastically reduced under the present administration through the activities of the EFCC.
“In the past, you could see many houses being unoccupied, but we have in recent times many cases of estate developers reporting that EFCC invited them over houses that are not being occupied by anybody.
“Some people steal money and cannot carry it to the bank, and then they divert the money into real estate because the business does not decrease in value but instead it appreciates.
“This is common in FCT, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kaduna during past administrations.
“They operate by putting “To Let’’ sign posts on the houses, and end up scaring people away with high rent because they don’t have intention to let it out.”
The expert said they used such method to scare people away because they only have intention to retain the house so that the value could continue to increase.
He, however, called on the Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria (REDAN) to deepen its collaboration with the EFCC to further identify people who used looted or laundered money for estate development.
“If REDAN can be well organised and take the bull by the horn, corruption in estate development will be stopped or be brought to a minimal level.” (NAN)
ELLA/EEE
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Edited by Ese E. Ekama