Lagos Assembly raises hope on ‘killer’ land use charge

…Set to review ENVIRONMENTAL laws
Lagos State House of Assembly on Thursday raised hope of Lagosians on possible downward review of the “killer” Land Use currently being charged by the State government.

Raising the hope in a chat with Journalists at a retreat in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa said the House Committee on Lands has finished its assignment on the issue while its presentations is being awaited.

Obasa however, promised that residents would be given an acceptable feedback on the matter.

In a related development, the House is now set to review the controversial consolidated Lagos State Environmental Law along nine other laws of the House.

Also speaking on the review, the Speaker of the House stated that the essence of coming together to review the laws of the state was to serve the interest of members of the public and create opportunities for them.

Adding that the review would give the lawmakers an opportunity to do what would be of benefit to the people.

Some of the laws listed for reviewed are Public Private Partnership Law, Urban & Regional Planning Law/Model City Law, Public Procurement Agency Law, Consolidated Laws on the Environment, and Transport Law.

Others includes; Environmental Law (Waste Management), Neighbourhood Safety Agency, Lagos State House of Assembly Service Commission and Energy Law.

“Actually, we have a good environmental law in place but for the fact that we have problems with the implementation of the law does not mean that the law is not good.

“We are here because people raised eyebrow over some aspects of the laws and we want to see how we could amend them.

“We have brought in people, who have served as commissioners as insiders to tell us what is wrong with the laws and what we need to do.

“You would realise that we have always been receiving people on protests. That we are here (at the retreat) does not mean we have done something wrong. We should continue to review our laws. It is by going through them regularly that we will prepare our state for a better law.

“Even if a law was passed yesterday we can come around to review it today,” Obasa stated.

Emphasizing the earlier position of the House on Visionscape, the Speaker said there was nothing like Visionscape in the new Environmental Law of the state stressed though there were sections in the law that gives opportunity to the executive to operate PPP.

He however, said the sections that gives opportunity to the PPP depends on the people they brought in if they are capable.

“In this case there is an attachment in the law that states that they must make recourse to the House if they want to engage a private company which is why we say Visionscape is not known to us because we are not aware of it.”

“We have said on the floor that no money of the state must be paid to Visionscape and I repeated it recently,” Obasa explained.

Recalled the Assembly recently ordered the PSP operators on refuse clearing in the state to go back to work due to the heaps of refuse scattered all over the state.

Welcoming the lawmakers and other participants into the venue of the retreat, the Clerk of the House, Mr. Sanni Azeez assured them that the programme had been packaged to make the review of the 10 selected laws possible and acceptable to the people.