..Unveils NIESV Garde City 2022 logo

By Egufe Yafugborhi

NIGERIAN Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) has says the Senate Bill seeking to compel house owners to collect monthly rent against prevailing preference for yearly advance payment will not gain meaningful support unless the weighty odds against it are cleared.

President of NIESV, Emmanuel Wike, asserted this Tuesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers state where he unveiled the logo for the 52nd Annual Conference of institution tagged Garden City 2022 billed to hold in June.

Wike, on the monthly rent bill that introduced for the Federal Capital Territory by Sen Smart Adeyemi, said, “First, the government needs to call a stakeholders meeting where the issue will be discussed and we are willing to give them solutions to most of the problems they think high rent is causing in the Nigeria.

“You cannot control what you don’t have. Over 80 percent of properties in Nigeria are either owned by individuals or corporate bodies and not government. So will you be able to control what you don’t have?

“Secondly, in what corresponding measure is government also trying to reduce the increasing cost of building construction? You cannot spend N30Million on building and you are compelling somebody to collect monthly rent? How is he going to cope?

“Again, the structure that government has does not allow for monthly collection? No. What we have are annual payments. The grand rent people are paying on land, on certificate of occupancy (C of O), is it monthly? Of course it is annual.

“Facilities investors take from the banks and financial institutions to build, is it monthly? It is yearly. So how you think somebody has collected money from a financial institution to make annual payments and you are expecting him to collect monthly rent. It will not work.

“So the government should call for a robust stakeholders meeting where some of these things will be related. We have done that with the minister and in less than no time, NIESV will come up with a position.”

Ahead of the Garden City 2022 when the NIESV President is expected to hand over to a successor, Surveyor Wike said under his headship, the institution has strengthened welfare for members and created enabling environment for them to shine and generate wealth and employments, among other achievements.

He expressed the body’s gratitude to Governor Nyesom Wike whose administration’s commitment to infrastructural revolution and urban renewal in Rivers, he noted, has created remarkable economic opportunities for members of NIESV, just as he boasted that the 52nd Annual Conference, Garden City 2022 promises to be the best in the annals of the body.