PRESS RELEASE
DATE: 15th MAY, 2016
THE NEWS EDITOR,
PROSECUTE LANDLORDS WHO FLOUT SECTION
25 (5) OF THE RENT ACT
ABOUT US
The National
Tenants Union of Ghana, NATUG, is grass roots community-based tenants’
association working for the collective good of its members dotted across the
country. We assist tenants through education and provision of legal information;
searching and identifying affordable properties for our members to rent, and
lobby policy makers to formulate and implement housing policies that will
benefit of our members across the country, who are more than 10 million in
population.
As a group,
we believe all tenants have rights to affordable, decent housing free from
excessive and frequent rent increases.
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We,
seek to end all arbitrary evictions and all retaliatory actions against tenants
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We
believe that all people should have access to housing from discrimination based
on race, colour, creed, National origin, religion, sexual orientation,
political ideology, age, family status, and marital status, amount of income or
disability.
THE NEED FOR IMMEDIATE REVIEW OF THE RENT ACT
It is
regrettable to note that, day in and day out, the rent law of the republic is
blatantly abused and breached by property owners and the few wealthy
individuals who own apartments in the country with impunity. Upon, several
calls, by the public and sate institutions including the LAW REVIEW COMMISSION (LRC)
for the past 10 years to review the rent law, the call has fallen in deaf ears
with several pockets excuses from the Government and its agencies mandated
under the rent laws, to be precise, The rent control Department without any
justifiable reasons.
It took the
Nation over 32 years to arrive at a comprehensive National Housing Policy which
came into being March, 2015. We, therefore, would not be surprise if the report
of a newly supposedly validated draft bill of the Rent Law by the Rent Control
Department to be sent to Parliament for approval and subsequently, passed into
Law will not be a spin and a political gimmick, or better still not taking us
20 more years to come to fruition.
For over 2
decades now, the rent control department has continuously alleged that their
inefficiencies and lack of capacity to go about their duties as enshrined in
the 1963 and PNDC Law, 138, 1986 rent laws is as a results of the lack
interests and seriousness on the part of the Housing Ministry to support and
provide them with the necessary resources and accoutrements to be task worthy.
DEFICIENCIES OF THE RENT CONTROL
DEPARTMENT
According to
the Rent Control Department, all districts in the country should have offices to
work from; but, the reality according to the Department is that no resources
whatsoever come their way as an institution. The Chief Rent Officer, on many
platforms has indicated that the Department is severely under resourced and
lamented that in 2012 their Subvention from the Housing Ministry’s annual
budget came in the last quarter of that year.
He has also
confessed that the Rent Control Department has only one vehicle and even with
that, is rickety and could breakdown any time soon. The Department does not
have even computer to do their work and no offices to work from, as a results,
his personal office has now turned into “Rent Court” where tenants and
Landlords queue every morning to have an issue resolved.
RENT OFFENSE
currently, the rent law under section
25( 5) “offenses” of the Rent act, Act 220, 1963 was amended by section 19(2)
of the Rent control law, ( 1986), P.N.D.C.L 138; thus:
“ANY PERSON
WHO AS A CONDITION OF THE GRANT, RENEWAL OR CONTINUANCE OF A TENANCY DEMANDS IN
THE CASE OF MONTHLY OR SHORTER TENANCY, THE PAYMENT IN ADVANCE OF MORE THAN A
MONTH’S RENT OR IN THE CASE OF TENANCY EXCEEDING SIX MONTHS, THE PAYMENT IN
ADVANCE OF MORE THAN SIX MONTHS RENT SHALL BE GUILTY OF AN OFFENSE AND SHALL
UPON CONVICTION BY THE APPROPRIATE RENT MAGISTRATE BE LIABLE TO A FINE NOT
EXCEEDING 100 POUNDS OR IN DEFAULT IMPRISONMENT TERM NOT EXCEEDING 2 YEARS.”
From the above, clearly, you could
see that all landlords who demand rent exceeding the above mentioned by six
months advance, have breached the law. The ultimate goal of the Act, Act 220,
was largely to protect tenants from unlawful ejections, arbitrarily rent
increments, just to mention a few.
The continuous flouts of the law with impunity
further impoverish the low income population of the larger Ghanaian population
tenants who are more than 9 million citizens that, we, as Tenants Association
represents.
The above clause in the Law, reveals
multifaceted questions that should immediately spark a debate in the country to
determine whether our Hon.
Parliamentarians are in breach of the laws or not.
PARLIAMENTARIANS AND GOVERNMENT,
(EXECUTIVES), IN BREACH OF THE RENT LAW
At the
beginning of their term in office in 2013, all parliamentarians were paid
GHC50, 000 each to take charge of their Rent and Accommodation for the four-
year term in parliament. In this case, they were paid by government without any
recourse and recognition to the outstanding law governing Rent. The question is that, is the above payment to
them by Government justifiable under the law?
We
demand proper investigations to
ascertain how much they pay in advance as rents.
Are their
rents paid in every six months as prescribed by the rent laws?
PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS AND OFFICERS IN BREACH OF
THE RENT LAW
Not, too
long ago, it came to light that, the immediate past CHRAJ BOSS, was paying her rents in Dollars, and even, more than the
six months stipulated by the law. In principle and by law, she should have been
jailed for committing that offense under section 25(5) of the Rents Act, and
Section (19) 2 of the P.N.D.C. L 138, 1986. But, because of the scratch my
back, I scrap your back, she was left off the hook after breaching the law.
What lessons are the landlords taken from this act by the Executives and high
profile persons in authority? Are we not
all equal before the law? I leave for the public to answer to it.
RECOMMENDATIONS
We, humbly
recommend that, with immediate effect, the Government and the Rent Control
Department should take all remedial steps necessary to Identify, prosecute and
arrest all landlords and property owners who breach the law by charging and demanding
rents advance more than the six months.
We further
Recommend that, a special task force should by constituted by the Housing
Ministry and the Rents Control Department respectively, to move from house to house to apprehend
landlords who take advantage of the demand for shelter at the detriment of the
poor tenants to unholy enrich themselves and skim the cream from the tenants.
FREDERICK OPOKU
AG. SECRETARY – GENERAL,
NATIONAL TENANTS UNION OF GHANA
