Africa-Press – Tanzania. LAND owners in the country who failed to meet the December 31, 2021 deadline to clear their land rent will be forced to dig deeper into their pocket to pay a penalty of one per cent of every additional month estimated by Valuer’s assessment of the size of the plot.
This is according to the requirements provided for by the legislation guiding land ownership in the country according to Land Commissioner, Nathaniel Nhonge.
Mr Nhonge addressed a news conference last week to remind owners to pay land rent in order to avoid being penalized or dragged to judicial organs, where he was quick to point out that every landowner was obliged as per the legislation to pay land rent for the country’s development.
“All people owning land need to observe the given deadline every year in order to avoid unnecessary penalties as well as being taken to courts for contravening the law,” he said. Ideally, payments are not supposed to exceed December 31 each year, after that date landowners ought to be penalised by one per cent increment of land rent each month when the debt is yet to be cleared, according to the land commissioner.
Mr Nhonge added that through a 10-year strategy of land surveying, the government had decided that the surveying pace be increased through the use of over 200 companies contracted by the ministry to conduct the exercise.
At the occasion, the Head of Rent Unit in the Ministry of Land and Human Settlement Development, Denis Masami said that over 50 per cent of land owners had cleared their payment by December 31, 2021, thus avoiding the one per cent penalty beginning January 01, 2022.
“People ought to rush paying their land rent at the end of the year to avoid being penalised and towards the end the year 2021, we were receiving up to 890 people per week rushing to clear their payment and on average we were collecting up to 3bn/- per week,” said the head of the rent unit.
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