Renowned Communist, Prof. Dinkum chided former President John Dramani Mahama for saying he will push for the Rent Control Bill to be passed into law to prevent tenants from being unfairly burdened with paying more than one year’s rent in advance.
The Flagbearer in a meeting with the National Tenants Union in his office on Friday, June 28, 2024 said ” I discussed my plans to tackle Ghana’s housing deficit by building low-cost houses across the country. Housing is a crucial need, and my government will work tirelessly to develop SOCIAL HOUSING that is truly affordable and accessible for ordinary Ghanaians. That will be one of my legacies as President. We will also push for the Rent Control Bill to be passed into law to prevent tenants from being unfairly burdened with paying more than one year’s rent in advance.” Mahama stated,
Reacting to this, Prof. Dinkum described the statement of the former president as fever of promises.
“You continued to explore your fever of promises to them _ it has made the masses presumed at this point that, probably you are languishing in intellectual malediction. It is a malady for you to had engaged into such catachresis without doing a better and further research on the length of that subject _ thus, ‘ building more affordable houses’ instead.” He said in a statement.
Read the full statement below
TO HOAX THE POPULACE IS GRAVELY DISCOMMODING.
On the 28th. June, you once again, embarked on your habitual pining for weaving words and metaphors in a cut – throat manner for your oneiric presidential renaissance, of which, you posited that, ” I will push for the Rent Control Bill to be passed into law to prevent tenants from being unfairly burdened with paying more than one year’s rent in advance “. This occured in a meeting with the National Tenants Union (NTU). You continued to explore your fever of promises to them _ it has made the masses presumed at this point that, probably you are languishing in intellectual malediction. It is a malady for you to had engaged into such catachresis without doing a better and further research on the length of that subject _ thus, ‘ building more affordable houses’ instead. Since, you idolize solecism and behave like an unlettered person at any convenience, then we shall also continue to treat you as humpty dumpty. Your endeavor to indirectly portray as if the ruling Party, the NPP is not keen to enact that law is not facticity.
Forthrightly, our tenants are in absolute purgatory in the hands of their owners, due to their rigorous rental advance conditions. As it has been duly enshrined in section (25), Subsection (5) of the amended Rent Act, 1963 ( Act 220 ), ” Any person who as a condition of grant, renewal or continuance of a tenancy demands in the case of a monthly or shorter tenancy, the payment in advance of more than a month’s rent or in the case of a tenancy exceeding six months, the payment in advance of more than six months rent shall be guilty of an offence and shall upon conviction by the appropriate Rent Magistrate be liable to a fine not exceeding 500 penalty units which is equivalent to 600 cedis or a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years ”
This is the reality of the law, but it is antithetically contrasting in its implementation in this Country. A series of caveats had been given out to the tenants to cable their landlords/landladies to any of the police headquarters for them to face the law, but it appears, any attempt of them to activate such quest seems to be pendulous.
In January 2015, The Ghana Rent Control Department had stated that no landlord has the right to charge more than six months’ rent advance. It said it was also illegal for landlords to increase their rent charges arbitrarily. The Chief Rent Controller, Mr Addo Soin Dombo, in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, said the current situation where landlords charged two years’ rent advance was illegal. Mr. Mahama, were you not the President at that time ?
How did you cooperate with the house owners to trim down their princely fees and also be subservient to the said law ? You were nonchalant about it, stonewalled to thwart it ; no propitious structure was laid down in order to lull their monstrous demands. You once had the leeway to gag those inimical treatment towards the tenants, so kindly stop niggling on this. Your perceived passivity of the populace with your shamming pledges will be idle and barren, because Ghanaians are astucious now.
The NPP has put up a slick measures to buffer this bummer. A new law is on the verge of being ratified and gazetted in order to steamroll the house owners to basically show obeisance to it. The Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye, made this known at a press briefing in Accra last Sunday.
The briefing was to update the media on recent developments in the housing sector.
He said the Bill sought to ensure that a landlord who demands the payment of rent “in advance for more than one month in a monthly tenancy, or a tenancy which is shorter than one month, or more than one year in a tenancy which exceeds one year, commits an offence” clearly identified in the Bill. The minister implored well-meaning Ghanaians to take particular interest in these engagements to ensure the passage of the Bill into law.
This, he elucidated, could be done by consigning their respective vistas and anticipations to their Members of Parliament for the House to consider for its passage into law.
This is pellucidly indicial that, this government, the NPP has a component of altruism and in that regards, working like a trojan horse to institute frugal law to assuage the livings of tenants and give them the facility to live tranquilly. Mind you, it is a broader consultative work, since the house owners must be coaxed to come into consonance with regards to the law on the horizon. The Government has done an exquisite job by building 8000 affordable housing units at Pokuase, which optimistically more will be commissioned soon. It is scientifically factual that, no government can accommodate all houses in a Country, however, some NGO’s, Private entities may get involved. So, the narrative should not be like, it is as a result of inadequacy of houses by the government _ UK doesn’t hold all the houses within their entire provinces, same as USA and other well – developed Countries across. We should not be flimflammed by any opportunistic figure that, he could build affordable houses to oust the NGO’s, Private entities from getting associated : it is an optical illusion!
Therefore, Mahama’s proposition is analogous to canard, for, it is practically done under the auspices of the ruling Party, the NPP.
By : Prof. Dinkum.
( The Buzzing Rapine of Erudition)
Source: Elvisanokyenews.com
