Chinelo Obogo
Lagos State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Moshood Salvador, has said his party does not accept the increment of the Land Use Charge (LUC) by the state government.
Salvador said the increase of LUC by 500 percent and its subsequent reduction by 50 percent are unacceptable and vowed that the PDP will not relent until the new charges are cancelled.
He said: “If Governor Akinwumi Ambode is performing well, he will not resort to over taxing Lagos residents. Reducing the charge is not enough. When we reacted, he reduced it by half, but that is not enough; we want complete cancellation.”
Salvador said a reasonable government should have a lot of investments that would generate income for the state, instead of taxing the public to death.
“Lagos generates billions in revenue, yet, the state government wants to kill people with over taxation. They should stop punishing the people anytime they need money. It is not acceptable. We do not even accept an increase of taxation by 10 percent, not to talk of 50 percent increment. I want to use my father’s house as an example; the land use charge he was given before the increment was N52,000, so with a 500 percent increment, we would pay about N260,000.
“The government then said it has reduced it by 50 percent, which brings it down to N130,000 for a house that generates about N120,00. How do we come up with such an amount? You can see that it is impossible. They said in the high brow areas, they would tax according to the value of the house, and I ask, who determines the market value of a house? If it is the government that would determine the market value, they can say my house, which is not worth more than N200 million, is N1 billion. When it is impossible for me to pay, you would now take me to a Kangaroo court to recover my house.
“I want to state categorically that no one is interested in the All Progressives Congress (APC) again because of all these; but, I won’t rely on their unpopularity and cease to work for the progress of my party. We have begun a digital mobilisation and already, 6,000 people have registered to join us. PDP is ready to take over Lagos State.”