The FCT Administration has commenced massive regularization of Area Council and Mass Housing land titles within the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The project which is being carried out under the Accelerated Area Councils and Sectional Titles Re-Issuance Scheme (AACSTRIS) will be given a massive boost as budgetary allocation in the 2020 appropriation and manpower have been deployed to fast track the implementation process.
Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS), Dr. Isa Ibrahim Jalo, disclosed this in an interaction with newsmen at the weekend in his office at No. 4, Peace Drive, Central Business District, Abuja.
The Director revealed that AGIS has already received about 10,000 applications from the public for regularization of their Area Councils titles; equally 22 Mass Housing developers have also made submissions.
He further revealed that since the new Section commenced work in earnest, about 1,530 Rights of Occupancy (R-of-O) have been prepared and ready for collection by the beneficiaries of the Mass Housing Scheme.
Dr. Jalo added that about 300 Rights of Occupancy have been released to the allottees of the Area Councils titles as 30 Area Councils layouts have been vetted and ready for regularization.
The Director said that the process of issuance of Certificates of Occupancy for about 250 beneficiaries of Mass Housing Scheme have reached an advanced stage, now awaiting developers’ compliance with terms of Rights of Occupancy to enable issuance of Certificates of Occupancy.
Dr. Jalo revealed that the FCT Administration decided to resuscitate AACSTRIS in order to ensure that all Area Councils’ titles records are properly cleaned to avoid cases of multiple allocations and other sundry issues.
His words: “In order to drive this policy effectively, the FCT Administration has created a specialized Section with an Annex Office beside AGIS Complex, to be manned by competent personnel drawn from various land related departments”.
The Director disclosed that considering the importance of the project, the National Assembly has appropriated funds in this year’s budget for the execution of this very important project.
According to him, “with the commencement of this scheme, the knotty issue of double and multiple ownership of plots in the Area Councils of the Territory, which is as a result of forgery of documents by racketeers will soon be a thing of the past”.
He said the scheme is expected to first and foremost, issue statutory Rights of Occupancy and subsequently, Certificates of Occupancy to bonafide owners of titles in the Area Councils and Mass Housing.
He reiterated that AGIS is also working assiduously to bring all its payments online for the comfort and easy accessibility of its customers, in consonance with the Ease of Doing Business policy of the Federal Government.
