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NHC defaulters given 30 days
2006-02-18 09:19:11
By Patrick Kisembo
The government gave the directive as a result of the 11bn/- debt, the corporation is owed by defaulters over the past 11 years.
The order by the Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development, John Magufuli, wants NHC to recover all rent arrears to restore the corporation to liquidity.
Magufuli gave the directive when he visited NHC headquarters, opposite the National Stadium in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
’We must start using Act Number 11 of 2005 from now on, to make sure that those who default on rents are given 30 days’ notice. Do not look at their faces or colour, political affiliation or wealth. Just implement what I have told you,’ he said.
The minister said that if tenants fail to settle the arrears within 30 days, they will be evicted and their property seized to recover the money.
’I want you to start with the tenants in Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region. There are about 450 tenants who have not paid rent for more than 10 years, yet they have taken NHC to court for asking for rent,’ the minister said.
He said: ’I am not pleading with you, this is an order. You must take them to court as soon as possible.’
He added: ’You have said you want political support, now this is the support,’
Magufuli said the NHC must build and sell houses to the needy only.
’There are some tycoons who have good houses out there, but they want to cling to government houses. These people have to be screened and the houses taken and allocated to people who have no houses,’ he said.
He went on: ’The NHC houses are not hereditary, whereby when parents die their offspring take over and then pass it to their grandchildren. They are for all Tanzanians.’
He said that no clan or family can live in a NHC house for over 40 years.
He urged NHC staff to develop a new programme that allows tenants to live in an NHC house for two to three years renewable contract.
’If after the contract the tenant is considered unsuitable, he or she has to vacate the house for other people,’ said Magufuli.
Magufuli also gave a one-month notice to the NHC officers to compile a list of all the 16,000 tenants, which must be accompanied by their photographs.
He said this would enable NHC to weed out bogus tenants.
NHC board chairman Suleiman Hemedi complained to the minister that some tenants had made it impossible to collect rent despite it being the lowest in the country.
’Currently, a tenant at Fire flats in Kariakoo, pays 19,000/- per month for a two bedroomed self-contained house, compared to 10,000/- per room paid for non-NHC houses,’ he said.
According to NHC director-general Martin Madekwe, collection of rent is still low.
’We need to increase it to at least 85 per cent. This is the amount that was set by the NHC board in 1994,’ he said.
Madekwe said that for about 11 years NHC had failed to meet its rent collection targets because of resistance from some tenants.
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