Re: AMAC’S controversial tenement rates
Our attention has been drawn to the editorial of your newspaper of Thursday, January 19, 2017 entitled, “AMAC’S controversial tenement rates”. Going through the editorial, we discovered that your highly respected Daily Trust was far from the true position of AMAC tenement issue, instead choose to publish as its opinion erroneous, misleading and embarrassing report […]
Our attention has been drawn to the editorial of your newspaper of Thursday, January 19, 2017 entitled, “AMAC’S controversial tenement rates”. Going through the editorial, we discovered that your highly respected Daily Trust was far from the true position of AMAC tenement issue, instead choose to publish as its opinion erroneous, misleading and embarrassing report this issue without cross checking the facts before publication.
It surprised us to note that in your editorial, you quoted tenement rates from non-existence list from the Council, which you said the property owners in AMAC are to pay.
The provisional valuation list earlier displayed at the Council Secretariat for 21 days contains only the ratable values of properties and not the tenement rates payable as purported.
We wondered where you got your tenement rates of N5million and N9million to be paid for a five bedroom duplex and a seven bedroom duplex respectively. As a matter of fact, it is not the council that fixes tenement rates to be paid by property owners; rather it is the National Assembly that fixes the rates after receiving ratable values of properties from the Council.
The provisional valuable list was released to the general public for property owners to come and check the value of their properties and make objections. With this explanation we believe you will realize that your correspondent who fed you with this report only misled you and exhibited his ignorance about the whole process of fixing tenement rates in AMAC, as he was at the scene of the press briefing by the Chairman of AMAC who explicitly made known the role of the national Assembly in this respect.
Because of the weight of the weight of your editorial opinion, we cannot allow this to be swept under the carpet, therefore we kindly demand that you use your editorial page to publish the correct position of the whole exercise, in order to put the information straight before the teeming public that have been misled by your opinion.
Dayo Lawal, Chief Press Secretary to the Hon. Chairman, AMAC.