Africa-Press – Tanzania. MINISTRY of Land, Housing and Human Settlement Development has collected more than 60bn/- in land rent, calling upon land owners who are yet to pay the rent to clear their debts by today to avoid paying additional charges as penalty.
According to Land Commissioner, Mathew Nhonge, land rent is being paid once within a respective financial year which begins on July 1 to June 30 of the following year. “Every legal land owner is required to pay rent , the law has given a grace period of six months of the respective year from July 1 to December 31 to clear the payment before paying with an interest of 1 per cent ,” he said.
He noted that from January 1 land rent defaulters will start paying the rent with an interest of 1 percent of every additional month. Mr Nhonge said that the ministry has set up a good system for citizens, institutions and companies to make payments through mobile phones and those with accumulated debts to pay by installments.
When the rent is not paid we normally inform the defaulters through notice, and after 14 days we start taking legal actions in collecting the government tax by taking defaulters to the land and housing councils and court. He noted that the ministry has also established customer communication centre with the aim of serving the citizens on issues related to rent, filing, receiving of complaints and advising them.
Commenting on land survey and planning Nhonge said that to date about 25 per cent of the land has been surveyed and planned ,adding that in order to attain the objective of surveying the entire land, the government has engaged 163 private companies to speed up the process.
Head of the rent unit from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Development Denis Masami said that to date more than 60bn/- has been collected out of the target of collecting 221bn/- in 2021/2022 financial year. He said that people who own land, according to the law, are 1.7 million and those who have paid so far are about 50 per cent.
“We came up with several strategies to make sure that the payment is done within the time frame … for example in Dodoma region the number of land owners paying rent has increased from 250 to 890 per week and the collections have also increased from between 60m/- and 70m/- to 200m/- per week,” he said.
Masami further noted that after December 31, the ministry will conduct an evaluation to identify land rent defaulters for further legal actions
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