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| Business |
| Don’t pay, Cama tells MHC tenants |
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by
Aubrey Mchulu, 19 August 2004
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17:52:25
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A promise is a credit. The Consumers Association of Malawi has asked tenants of the state-owned Malawi Housing Corporation (MHC) to ignore the proposed 20 percent rental hike to be effected this September until the public housing provider maintains the houses into habitable conditions.
Cama executive director John Kapito told a press conference in Blantyre Wednesday that the consumer rights watchdog is flooded with complaints of MHC tenants who argue that the hiked rentals are not justified because MHC has not lived up to its promise of last year to maintain and paint the houses when it last raised the rentals.
“We are not against the rental hike but we want MHC to first maintain the houses, otherwise no consumer should pay the new rentals,” he said.
MHC, Cama and MHC tenants from Zomba last year signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in which MHC agreed to refurbish the houses before implementing the rental hike.
But, the three parties reached a compromise and agreed that MHC implements the rental hike on condition that rentals be charged on the basis of condition of the house, age and its location.
Nearly all MHC-owned houses are in sorry state after not being maintained for years. In some cases, where the houses are in good condition, tenants who can afford have had to either paint or replace toilet seats, doors, locks and other fittings using own expenses.
Kapito, whose organisation in 1997 successfully dragged MHC to court not to hike rentals, said the proposed hike is unjustified and smacks of exploitation. He said tenants cannot believe MHC this time that the houses will be maintained with the new rentals.
“What goes up in the houses they have not maintained for the past 10 years to justify a rental hike?” he queried.
MHC general manager Mark Ndaferankhande referred the issue to the organisation’s public relations officer Lucy Kapito.
But when contacted, Kapito could not give the justification for the proposed rental hikes and whether the corporation has maintained the houses saying she had “to attend to important company business in the corporate secretary’s office.”
Among the proposed rentals, a two-bed-roomed MHC house in Nkolokosa Township in Blantyre will be raised from K2,600 to K3,200 per month while bedsitters currently at K1,000 will be raised to K1,250 per month. |
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