The Abia Government has directed property owners in Aba to use Gov. Alex Otti’s 90 days moratorium to renew or acquire their building permits to avoid unnecessary losses.
Mr Uche Ukeje, the Director-General, Greater Aba Development Agency, handed down the directive on Friday in Aba at a news conference to announce the commencement of the moratorium.
Ukeje said the briefing was to introduce the programme which the governor had approved for Aba.
According to him, the period of the moratorium is from Sept. 10 to Dec. 9.
He said that there had never been a Master Plan for Aba but as part of the process of getting one, there was the need for the state to take stock of what it had.
“Ordinarily, when you erect your building without an approved plan, when you want to regularise it, there are penalties and there are things that come with that regularisation.
“But in his wisdom and magnanimity, the governor has brought Christmas early to the city of Aba.
“He is offering a 90 day moratorium for anyone who has a commercial or residential building that was built without approval to come in and get it approved.’’
Ukeje said that the basic idea of the exercise was the collection of data and not generation of funds for the state.
He said people would be billed according to the time they built their houses and not with current rates for everyone.
The director-general said the state needed the building data to plan as it was difficult in the modern world to plan without data.
“If you want to site hospitals, schools or any other facility be it social or financial, the first question they will ask you is what is your market, who are you serving?
“And as it is today, we don’t have that data because most of the things happen outside the system.
“So, what we are doing is basically to provide the government with the information we need to serve the people better”, he said.
He said that the 90 days moratorium was for people who had property go to Town Planning Authorities in Aba North and Aba South, Osisioma, Ugwunagbo and Obingwa to get the cost of their building permits.
He said the asset owners would be required to pay into Abia Government’s account and then return with proof of payment for documentation.
Ukeje said that three phone lines had been provided to report staff who might want to overreach asset owners for their own gains during the exercise.
“The public are advised not to pay any money to any account that is not Abia IGR account.
“And do not offer any of our officers bribe.
“In fact, if we see you giving any of our officers money, we will arrest the person and arrest you too”, he said.(NAN)
