The Edo State Geographic Information Service (EDOGIS) has urged landowners and investors to promptly pay ground rent, property tax and other statutory land charges, describing compliance as critical to strengthening the state’s revenue base and financing infrastructure, security and other essential public services.
Innocent Bello, managing director of EDOGIS, made the appeal during an interactive session with journalists in Benin City. He said internally generated revenue from land administration remains a vital source of funding for the state’s development agenda.
Bello noted that prompt payment of statutory land charges would enable the government to sustain investments in roads, public infrastructure, healthcare, security and other essential services, while supporting a more transparent, efficient and investor-friendly land administration system.
He said that the agency was intensifying reforms to sanitise land administration through the deployment of digital technology aimed at eliminating land fraud, multiple land sales, illegal occupation of government land and revenue leakages.
The EDOGIS boss disclosed that the agency has processed more than 1,000 of the over 3,500 Certificates of Occupancy (C-of-O) applications inherited from the previous administration and forwarded them to Governor Monday Okpebholo for approval after completing a comprehensive verification exercise.
