By Favour Nnabugwu

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) will in line with its ongoing efforts to sanitize the real estate sector in the Nation’s Capital, introduce Rents Regulatory Agency (RERA), in order to ease the burden imposed on the residents through costly annual rents.

FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, said the agency will be backed with necessary laws that will require property owners to collect rents on monthly or quarterly basis instead of the current annual or biannual arrangement.

Mohammed hinted on this move while responding to questions from FCT residents last month during the Town Hall Meeting to mark the end of the four-day Good Governance Tour embarked upon by the Federal Ministry of Information to asses various Federal Government Projects in the FCTA.

He  noted that tenants in Western countries pay rent for between two weeks and six months and lamented that in Nigeria, particularly in Abuja, tenants were forced to pay two years and above at a time.

Mr. Aliyu Hakeem, the FCT Council Chairman of Trade Union Congress (TUC), urged the Federal Government and the FCT Administration to check the excesses of Abuja landlords whom he identified as “retired military officers, retired permanent secretaries and politicians”.

Hakeem promised that organised labour would support the bill that seeks to sanction property owners in Abuja who demand a two-year advance payment for rent. He said the high cost of owning and renting a house in Abuja had fuelled corruption in the public service.

“Our members believe that corruption and can be eliminated by up to 80 per cent. This will be if civil servants in the FCT are not made to live and exist as settlers and second-class citizens, while the ruling class lord it over them as indigenes and shylock landlords.

“The inability of our members to meet up with these extremely high cost of rent has made many of them to be living outside the FCT, thereby commuting several kilometres to work,” the TUC official said. Hakeem expressed regret that this development had led to workers’ reporting late for work, with a significant loss of man hours on a daily basis.

The increase in the cost of rent in Abuja is not only restricted to the city centre and satellite towns, those who live in border towns, but work in Abuja, lament the high cost of rent where they stay.

Residents of Abuja groan under the high cost of rent as a standard two bedroom apartment in highbrow areas of Abuja like Maitama, and Asokoro cost between N1.5 million and N2 million per year, depending on the available facilities in the said house.

For places like Wuse, Garki, Jabi, a three bed room apartment goes for between N2.5 million and N3 million per annum, with landlords sometimes insisting on payment for two years. While in Gwarimpa Estate, one bedroom self contained that is not spacious costs between N400, 000 and N500, 000 depending on its location.

The huge influx of people into the city has led to the emergence of satellite towns such as Karu Urban Area, Suleja Urban Area, Gwagwalada, Kuje and others. But be it in the satellite towns or what the residents refer to as ‘Town,’ they are daily confronted with rising cost of accommodation.