DEVELOPMENT PLAN: Edo Ahead Of Other States, Says EdoGIS

By Simeon OSAJIE

The Managing Director, Edo State Geographic Information Service (EDOGIS), Esv. (Mrs) Osaro Aihie, said it is backing the Governor Godwin Obaseki’s new town development plan which is to put the state in the number of developed states in the country.

Aihie stated this in a chat with newsmen in Benin City where she said she is also streamlining the activities of middlemen which is representatives to reduced cases of fraud adding that she has a target of achieving 80 percent online processing of Certificates of Occupancy (C of O).

According to EdoGIS MD., “We have increased the number of C of Os we have signed. For instance, since the establishment of the EDOGIS, they have signed about 16,000 C of Os but for the past seven months that I came, I have done over 4,000. We are trying to ensure that you can get your C of O within 30 working days if all your papers are complete.

“The first thing about your land is the title because if you don’t have the title documents, you don’t really have land so it is good to get your C of O. We are calling on people to conduct searches to be sure that what they are buying is right. We want to do the new master plan which is what the governor wants right by getting the processes right because if you develop without a title, the Ministry of Physical Planning is not going to give you approval.”

On the operations in the organization, Aihie said, “The middlemen is what we call representatives here, some of them are committing a lot of havoc and we want to streamline that, there are a lots of complaints even from our people abroad we want to train them and we also want to digitized the entire process so that you can do everything about your C of O online because the less contact you have with the people, the less corrupt practices you will get. Though we have a tax officer here that helps to verify the authenticity of the tax clearances they bring before us. We were recently honoured as the best organisaton for ease of land titling, we were selected as the best in the South-South and our online process has been appreciated.”