The Lands Commission

It had been a grueling 3 years for Dr Gagol. He had been headhunted specifically by the President to head the Fiscal Commission as the lead negotiator for the Federal Government with the Western States over revenue allocation.

The President had been direct, the nation needed his expertise at this time. Dr Gagaol had emigrated to US with his family when he was 3. He had worked his way up the ladder to eventually leading the United States Government negotiations with the Native Americans on the reservations on commercial land rights. Dr Gagol remembered those negotiations with the Sioux nation who had demanded far reaching rights to conduct trade and commerce outside the existing US Commerce regulations.

He could see why the nation needed him as lead negotiator. The Western States was where all the major ports and manufacturing concerns in the nation were based, yet since 2030, the ports were deserted, the rail tracks silent.

In 2029, the Federal Government changed the constitution and transferred ownership of all lands to the Federal Government, in effect land sales became a commercial activity exclusive to the Federal Government. The Federal Government established the National Lands Corporation, the NLC which was given ownership over all land.

The Federal Government had argued that land sales and property taxes were a huge contributor to tax revenues and were needed to replace oil revenues that has crashed to $2 a barrel. The Western States saw it as an economic coup.

The Western Caucus had made the point that taking revenues generated from land sales from states to the Federal Government took away the right of states in a federation to engage in commercial activities. They had a point. In many Local governments, the National Lands Corporation had simply allocated all the land to a real estate developer based in Dubai to develop into plots, sell and pay all revenues to the Federal Government who will share to other states.

The NLC had also been grossly ineffective and corrupt, larger hectares of land were sold and billions of $ were not remitted to FAAC.

The reaction to the Lands Commission laws were incendiary. The Western states had first sought negotiations with the Federal Government over what share of land sales and property tax will be retained by the States. The Western States proposed they retain 90% of the property tax and revenues from sale of land, the Federal Government was adamant, the states would receive 13% of all land revenue.

The Federal Government also promised to set up a Ministry of the West to invest directly in capital projects in the Western States. Dr Gagol had also asked that the FGN set up a new Commission the Western Development Commission to receive an extra 10% of all property tax, especially land sales that originated in high land value areas in the Western States. This was met with stiff opposition from the Eastern bloc in the Senate, they demanded that all land in the nation be also classified as “high revenue land” and also receive the new 10% .

The Northern block in the Senate also asked what the Western states had done with the past property tax they had collected? They queried why there were still swamps and open sewers in the West. To them, only the Federal Government was able to make the Western States the new Singapore.

With the breakdown in negotiations between the Federal Government and Western States, the former unlicensed land grabbers had embarked on a campaign of economic sit-ins. They blocked overhead bridges, and road, to congest roads from the ports. With roads congested, the ports shut down the nations imports and exports suffered, inflation soared, GDP growth fell, and unemployment rose. At present the Federal Government was unable to fund its 2020 budget, it blamed actions of the unlicensed land grabbers .

Dr Gagol had told the President privately that reallocation of percentages of property tax was not a long term solution, ultimately he had argued, the Federal Government would actually earn more revenues if it allowed the private ownership of land and simply taxed the income generated by the land sales and taxes.

Dr Gagol was positive the Legislators would adopt a strategic outlook and seek a true entrenchment of fiscal federalism, the nation simply could not continue to fight over commodities and allocation of wealth, the focus to him was to push for true fiscal federalism.

Well its our problem, we can fix it, he thought as he walked to his meeting…