- Slams fraudulent Real Estate developers
BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA – The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has recovered N53 billion from a real estate developer for the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN).
According to the Commission’s Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, the said developer had pocketed monies received through the bank without providing houses for its subscribers.
He however assured that the Commission, in its mandate delivery, will always deploy all legal machinery against developers who are in the habit of cornering subscribers’ funds without keeping their promise of providing houses for public or civil servants across the country.
A statement signed by the ICPC Spokesperson, Mrs Azuka Ogugua said Prof Owasanoye stated this at a meeting with the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee Investigating the Operations of Real Estate Developers in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The ICPC boss, who expressed concerns over the distressing housing deficit in the country, lamented that some unscrupulous real estate developers in the FCT have continued to take advantage of desperate civil servants by scamming them of their hard-earned money in the name of so-called housing projects.
He said the Commission is determined to partner with the ad-hoc committee and other stakeholders to sanitise the nation’s housing sector given its critical nature to the government and the socio-economic development of Nigeria.
For Prof Owasanoye, one major way to tackle housing deficit and fraudulent real estate developers in the country is that government must not only deploy wholesale technology, but also grant easy access to information in managing activities within the housing sector.
“Lack of openness is also creating problems. Government should at least put information in the public domain where people can easily verify details of land.
“A lot of people are scammed from fake layout, double allocations and others”, the ICPC Chairman observed.
In his remarks, Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Hon. Blessing Onoh, had noted that cases of developers defrauding would-be house owners was becoming rampant and urgent measures must therefore be taken to effectively stop the criminal practice.
The lawmaker noted that the common practice is for real estate developers to start projects, abandon them later and move on to other cites after collecting huge sums from subscribers.
She said the committee was set up to proffer solutions to these anomalies and ensure that Nigerians who subscribed to housing projects end up owning such houses in line with the terms of agreement they entered.
However, one of the Committee members admitted to Forefront that the fraudulent practice has gone on for so long because there are no sanctions on developers whose stock-in-trade is to defraud unsuspecting members of the public.
