Africa-Press – Tanzania. TANZANIA Building Agency (TBA) tenants have less than two weeks to settle their rental fees before legal measures are instituted against them, the Agency has warned.
TBA Chief Executive, Architect Daud Kondoro told the ‘Daily News’ that tenants from more than 17 government institutions owe the agency more than 4bn/- as rental fees.
Kondoro said failure by the tenants to pay the fees on time has led to accumulation of the rental fees.
Architect Kondoro said the agency has issued a notice to all tenants in the regions to clear their outstanding debts by end of this month to allow TBA to proceed with the execution of its development plans.
He said TBA has hired two court brokers, namely Yono Auction Mart and Harvest Tanzania Limited who have been handed a list of all tenants who owe the agency for the implementation of the required procedures.
“After the expiry of the notice, the agency will have the list of names of tenants who failed to clear their debts, which will be presented to the court brokers for further legal procedures,” he said.
He noted that by January 2021, legal action will be taken against them, including evicting those who will have not paid their debts.
According to Kondoro, the next step will be filing a lawsuit against the tenants who will have been evicted to ensure that they pay the debt despite having been evicted from the premises.
“I call upon all TBA tenants to pay their debts before the end of this year because no excuse will be considered come January, 2021,” he stressed.
In addition, he said that the total debt is 7.3 bn/- from 423 tenants in all regions who have been notified, including 69 tenants from Dar es Salaam region which expires on 31st December 2020.
He further said failure by the tenants to pay the rental fees has been a hindrance to TBA’s efforts to implement its development plans, including the renovation and construction of new houses that could be rented or sold to other public servants.
“Failure by the tenants to settle their debts has been affecting the agency efforts to execute its development plans, such as renovating old houses and constructing new ones which could be rented to other people, including public servants,” he said.
The Director of the TBA Intellectual Property Department, Said Mndeme said despite the challenges, the government has allocated them with 12bn/- in the 2020/2021 budget for renovation of houses, of which 5.2bn/- will be used for maintaining sewage system in the savant quarters across the country.
He, however, noted that TBA has been sending control numbers to the tenants every month so that they can make payments, but majority of them have failed to do so.
Mr Mndeme said that the agency was developing a mechanism that will enable the tenants to make payments through mobile phones.
