Bolgatanga, Jan 12, - Mr Adam Yaminu Kasim the Chief Rent Officer
for the Upper East Region on Thursday said the lack of personnel at his office
is impeding the Department from effectively enforcing Rent Control law.
He said the rent law ensures that
landlords make available every necessary utility such as electricity, water and
toilet facilities in their houses to give convenience to tenants before renting
them out. However, the few staff in the region made it impossible to enforce
the law and that had given opportunity to Landlords to operate without ensuring
that they had toilet facilities in the region.
He made this known in an
interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga, and said enforcing
law on getting Landlords to provide toilet facilities should be a joint effort
between the Rent Control and the Sanitation Department of the Municipal
Assembly and would be unfair to blame his outfit alone for non-enforcement of
the law.
The Regional Rent Officer said
the Department had staff strength of only five in the region and explained that
there was only one in Navrongo in the Kassena-Nankana Municipal, whilst the
rest were in Bolgatanga, the regional capital.
He explained that, he had always
used national service personnel posted to his outfit to complement his staffing
situation, adding that, in 2015 and 2016 the Department in collaboration with
the assembly prosecuted some offending landlords and attributed it to the
availability of service personnel.
He said the room rent was not
only the four corners of a room, but should include a decent place of
convenience, washroom, kitchen and even a store room in an ideal situation.
Mr Kasim expressed worry that the
Department did not receive National Service Personnel this year and that would
affect prosecutions of rent related cases due to the limited number staff.
He said his department was
bedevilled with some challenges including unavailability of a vehicle to
monitor households to ensure that the necessary facilities were provided in
houses before they were rented out.
“We also have a challenge of
sensitising the public on the need to insist on landlords to provide toilets
facilities in the houses before renting them out”.
He called on the Ministry of
Works and Housing the parent Ministry that over sees his Department to come to
their aid by recruiting personnel for the Department to enable them move to the
field to enforce the law and effectively mediate where necessary.
GNA
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