{"id":15871,"date":"2019-09-24T14:34:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T14:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/?p=15871"},"modified":"2019-09-24T14:34:04","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T14:34:04","slug":"un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt","title":{"rendered":"UN Envoy sends message to Buhari govt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ms Leilana Fartha, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Adequate Housing, on Monday urged the Federal Government to impose vacant home <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/nigeria\/economy\/nigerian-govt-considering-new-national-tax-policy-to-increase-tax-revenue\">taxes<\/a> with a view to addressing housing challenges in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Fartha at a news conference in Abuja, expressed concern over human rights crisis presented by poor living conditions in Nigeria\u2019s informal settlements.<\/p>\n<p>According to her, the informal settlements house about 69 per cent of the urban population.<\/p>\n<p>She said: \u201cMost residents in Nigeria\u2019s ballooning informal settlements live without access to even the most basic services, like running water.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd they lack any security of tenure, forcing them to live in constant fear of being evicted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy 10 days fact findings visit to Nigeria has presented an economic inequality in the country, which has reached extreme level and is playing itself out clearly in the housing sector.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is an estimated housing shortage of 22 million units.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the same time, newly built luxury dwellings are springing up throughout cities and made possible often through the forced eviction of poor communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese units do not fulfill any housing need, with many remaining vacant as vehicles for money laundering or investment,\u2019\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n<p>While urging the Federal Government to take urgent measures to address homelessness and poverty, Fartha advocated for a declaration of a nation-wide moratorium on forced evictions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGovernment must address the grossly inadequate housing conditions with the urgency and rigour befitting a human rights crisis of this scale.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cApart from establishing a national commission to investigate gross human rights violations in the context of forced evictions, the government should provide basic services to all informal settlements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd must increase the number of shelters for persons in situations of vulnerability,\u2019\u2019 Fartha said.<\/p>\n<p>She further expressed worry that the Bill for an Act to provide rent control failed in the National Assembly.<\/p>\n<p>According to her, when the bill for rent control first hit the National Assembly, it wasn\u2019t ripe<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is unfortunate that the bill died in NASS.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea of controlling rent caps is hotly debated in many countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew York just tried to have rent control laws passed; Barcelona is close to getting rent free as rent is actually frozen for some period of five to seven years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, in many jurisdictions, they have started to impose vacant home tax.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI support that kind of move from human rights point of view only where that money from the tax is directly put into the creation of affordable housing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the case of Nigeria it could be used as a fund to upgrade informal settlements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t like a tax and you never see where the tax is going.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are other measures that can be explored, there are situations where homes are misappropriated given that the government has all the lands in trust,\u2019\u2019 she stressed<\/p>\n<p>Fartha will present a comprehensive report of her visit to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ms Leilana Fartha, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Adequate Housing, on Monday urged the Federal Government to impose vacant home taxes with a view to addressing housing challenges in the country. Fartha at a news conference in Abuja, expressed concern over human rights crisis presented by poor living conditions in Nigeria\u2019s informal settlements. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":15873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29,14],"tags":[97,822,332],"class_list":["post-15871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-buhari","tag-nigerian-government","tag-un"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UN Envoy sends message to Buhari govt - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ms Leilana Fartha, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Adequate Housing, on Monday urged the Federal Government to impose vacant\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UN Envoy sends message to Buhari govt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ms Leilana Fartha, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Adequate Housing, on Monday urged the Federal Government to impose vacant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-24T14:34:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/2019\/09\/PRESIDENT-MUHAMMADU-BUHARI-3.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2592\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1947\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"alico\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"alico\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/50afd2ef4f0e900bd0a176404a8484a7\"},\"headline\":\"UN Envoy sends message to Buhari govt\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-24T14:34:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt\"},\"wordCount\":493,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/2019\/09\/PRESIDENT-MUHAMMADU-BUHARI-3.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Buhari\",\"Nigerian government\",\"UN\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/all-news\/un-envoy-sends-message-to-buhari-govt\",\"name\":\"UN Envoy sends message to Buhari govt - 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