Lawless Landlords, Funny Country

A few heads at the Rent Control Department and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) certainly must roll as they have no justification to continue to be at work.

The laws of the country are clear that landlords and property owners are not to charge rent payments in advance of six months yet it has become standard practice across the country for landlords to demand nothing below 24 months (two years) rent advance.

The law is also clear that landlords pay eight percent (8 %) of their annual rent charges as income tax to the Ghana Revenue Authority, a clear majority of landlords across the country continue to flout and disregard this law with crass impunity.

Yet there are human beings working at the GRA and the Rent Control Department and these right-thinking human beings continue to enjoy salary paid them by the tax payer. Salaries they do not deserve until they do their work properly.

THE PUBLISHER believes there is no justification for the average Ghanaian to continue to suffer from lawless landlords across the country especially when there are laws to regulate the rent charges.

There are many tenants that are compelled to go for huge loans before they can pay their rent advance. If the laws are made to work and the maximum rent advance of six months is what is being charged by landlords, it certainly would bring a huge relief to tenants.

It also makes absolutely no sense that the country continues to complain of not having enough funds to for basic developmental projects when the GRA has failed to go after the eight percent of annual rent charges from landlords.

That amount, when accumulated, would be more than enough to cash to make the country a better place.

Perhaps the human beings at the Rent Control Department and the GRA are not aware that landlords in Ghana are now charging their rent rates in American Dollars and this has become the latest culture.

In many houses in Ghana, the landlords only collect the rent from hapless tenants when the rooms they are renting have no toilet or bathrooms facilities. Asking or a kitchen would be a luxury demand.

Ghana is an interesting country.  Some of our laws and regulations were put together just for the sake of putting them together but not to be implemented.

THE PUBLISHER is calling on the GRA and the Rent Control Department to get up and do the right thing. Ghanaians should not continue to be forced against their will to pay rent advance more than the required six months.

And landlords should not be allowed to continue to pocket the eight percent of their annual rent charges which by law, they are to pay to the GRA as income tax.

Source: The Publisher