|
Land tribunal halts TPDC bid to evict tenants
2006-01-17 08:58:45
By Bilham Kimati
The Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) has lost a bid to evict tenants from its premises in Dar es Salaam.
The District Land and Housing Tribunal sitting in Kinondoni temporarily stayed a termination of lease agreement notice issued by the state corporation to its tenants.
The three-month notice was issued last September and was to expire on December 31.
It affected tenants of 101 houses in Mikocheni residential area.
Saying the move lacked legal substance and that it was a total breach of their contract, the tenants moved to court challenging the decision by the corporation’s management to terminate their tenancy.
’This honourable tribunal is pleased to issue temporary injunctive order restraining the respondent (TPDC) and/or its agents, servants, workmen or employees from evicting the applicants from the said premises pending determination of the main application,’ ruled the tribunal while granting the injunction.
In their application, the tenants averred that the purported termination of tenancy for the use of the respondent was not supported by fact.
They were clear in their application that the TPDC could only use the premises for residential purposes and that at no time were the employees of the corporation in need of residential houses.
The eviction order issued in September read in part, ’You are required to vacate the premises [allocated] to you at the said TPDC estate before December 31, 2005 as the landlord requires vacant possession of the premises for own use.’
TPDC being a public corporation, the tenants argued in their application, and having its strategic plans open to public scrutiny had not indicated in all its available plans an objective for acquisition or regaining possession of the houses for the purposes of housing employees and hence the notice was ’palpably unreasonable and unfounded in fact.’
The three-month notice, the tenants told the tribunal, was a contravention of the signed lease agreement and a deliberate breach of a contract entered between the two parties.
The Law Associates Advocate represents the Mikocheni Housing Estate tenants, while TPDC has the legal counsel of Nelly Godlays Moshi.
Putting their case before the tribunal, the tenants further averred that, the notice was a nullity because in the first instance, it fell out of the contractual period.
They observed that in the later case the tenants were nevertheless allowed under the agreement to have the right of renewal and this could not be pre-determined by the landlord.
However, on its part, TPDC responded saying with the loss of its monopoly of importing all fuel requirements in the mid-1980s, the corporation had re-categorised its houses as a source of revenue attracting commercial or market rent rates.
The strategy, the corporation averred, was to supplement its income to cushion the maintenance bill and so the need to let the houses to tenants at market rates.
The move is said to have subsequently driven employees of TPDC out of the houses.
They are to have sought accommodation elsewhere at affordable rate.
However, following the scaling down of the rate back to previous rates, TPDC employees who had hitherto vacated the houses are said to have applied to be allocated the premises with an option to purchase the same in line with the government policy.
At the same time following the introduction of production sharing Agreements where International Oil companies undertake to explore for hydrocarbons and share the costs with the corporation, TPDC was compelled to provide accommodation to expatriate contractors in at least five to three-bedroom housing units.
|
