By Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja

State governments across the country are seeking the review of the Land Use Act as part of measures towards facilitating easy access to land, especially to encourage Foreign Direct Investment.

This was one of the highpoints of a communique issued at the end of a two-day retreat organised by the Ministry of Trade and Investment for the 36 state commissioners in charge of trade and investment in Abuja.

The retreat had the theme, “Creating jobs, generating wealth and enhancing economic growth.”

The Land Use Act of 1978 vests the ownership of land in the governor of each state. This means that the state governors are statutorily responsible for the allocation of land in their respective states while the minister of the Federal Capital Territory oversees the allocation of land in the nation’s capital, Abuja.

But participants at the retreat noted that although there currently existed land registry in each state of the federation, there had been little effort on the part of the state governments to computerise the registries.

They also expressed concern that since all transactions on land required a governor’s consent subject to registration with land registry, the process of obtaining Certificate of Occupancy was often expensive, time-consuming and frustrating.

This situation, they said, constituted serious barrier to investment.

In order to remove the bottlenecks associated with the acquisition of land for investment, they stressed that there was an urgent need to simplify existing land procedures for effective title and consent delivery.

The communique stated, “One of the major problems militating against Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria is the current provisions of the Land Use Act. There is an urgent need for the Federal Government to review it with a view to making it proactive, investor-friendly and easier for land to be used as collateral.

“In order to achieve this objective, state governments should ensure speedy access to Certificates of Occupancy and governor’s consent to complement the efforts of the Federal Government in facilitating investment in the country.”

Source: Punch