House Committee Threatens To Sanction FCT Real Estate Developers For Alleged Violation Of Rules

The House of Representatives ad-Hoc Committee on Investigation of Operations of Real Estate Developers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) last Wednesday threatened to sanction real estate developers in Abuja for allegedly violating laid down rules and procedures in carrying out their business.

Members of the committee during their oversight visit to various sites frowned at the developers for various infractions, including failure to deliver to their subscribers and building without relevant authorisation from the government among others. Some of the developers whose sites were visited included Bilaad, Brains and Hammers, KYC and EFAB.

The Chairman of the committee, Hon Blessing Onuh, after the tour, described their findings as mind-boggling, saying the committee would analyse the various infractions by the developers and deal with them appropriately.

She said: “You are all aware that this is an investigative committee, and we are here on a fact-finding mission to discover what is on ground, what the reality is. We commenced this committee in November last year. And all these while, we have been calling developers to our office and also we created a platform between the developers and subscribers to have an interface to discuss. So it is more of a theoretical thing. So we are here to see it for ourselves. We are here to practice it and know if the developers are in compliance.

“What we have discovered is mind-boggling. There are a lot of contraventions by the developers in some of the places we visited. They do not have building plan approvals. No documents even where we are now (EFAB), and no titled documents. All EFAB could present to this committee was just a lease agreement of 2003. There is so much going on here, and it is quite unfortunate, and we promise that this committee is going to do something about it. We would look at the infractions, analyse them and then we would send those that have infractions to the necessary authority for intervention.”

Onuh added: “We are here with relevant departments of the FCT to do our findings and submit necessary recommendations to the House and the Minister for action. EFAB violates processes and regulations governing the FCT. It has no building approval yet it’s one of the biggest developers in the FCT. The committee will not hesitate to recommend severe sanctions and prosecution of everyone involved in these sharp practices.”