Tanzania: How NHC is milked by deceitful tenants

When the then young man, but now senior citizen Josephat Gwao, applied for rented accommodation at the National Housing Corporation (NHC) about twenty five years ago, he was welcomed like any other tenants.

He became a tenant for the state-run outfit, which allocated him a house at Upanga, Dar es Salaam, whose monthly rent is currently Sh151, 000. He subsequently secured an additional NHC house at Ilala.

But, after enjoying tenancy at the Upanga house for several years, Gwao, currently the chairperson of NHC tenants in Ilala moved to his private house at Plot No 509 at the city’s posh Msasani village.

Gwao didn’t surrender the NHC property, instead he decided to illegally rent the very same house to a third party at $600 per month--six times what the state owned Housing Corporation charges him.

Another NHC tenant, Ferdinand Swai, currently residing at Sinza area in Dar es Salaam, collects from his tenant between Sh450,000 and Sh600,000 per month for the house in Temeke, which he rent to a third party illegally, but still pays Sh55,000 to NHC. The same scenario applies to Zitha Lyimo, who pays Sh140, 000 for a NHC house but charges a private tenant Sh350, 000 for it, per month.

Agness Heri has rented two NHC houses in Upanga, one of whose monthly rent is Sh197, 000 but for which she collects Sh500, 000 from a private tenant.

The same case applies to Stephen Rweikiza and Theonestina Rweikiza who are reported to be pocketing Sh800, 000 while paying to NHC a rent of Sh131, 000. On her part, Godliver Rweyemamu collects between Sh150, 000 and Sh200, 000 per month, while only Sh45, 000 is due to Housing Corporation.

In Mwanza, one tenant in the name of Sunil sold his apartment he rented from NHC at $20,000 to his friend from Pakistan, but the latter pays the monthly rent of Sh97, 000 to NHC.

Those represent a mere glimpse into the world of fraud, under which unscrupulous tenants are profiting greatly from the negligibly long-time low NHC rents, by converting themselves into private landlords for houses they don’t own.

Incredibly, those very fraudsters are the most vehement in pushing the government to sell the houses to them.

According to the NHC Managing Director, Nehemiah Mchechu, the list of the fraudsters is pretty long, vowing that the corporation would put up stiff resistance against the ‘sell-the-houses-to-us’ campaign, and stamp out the irregularities for the betterment of NHC services and national interests at large. Mchechu who was speaking at the meeting with the NHC tenants at the Karimjee Hall in Dar es Salaam, said dishonesty was rampant, pointing out that the battle was not going to be easy because beneficiaries of ill-gotten wealth, and those waiting in the wings to jump onto the so-called gravy train, wouldn’t surrender easily.

The NHC Chief Executive told the gathering that whenever his office tried to make follow ups so that everybody pays what one is supposed to according to the revised rents in conformity to the market value, there was constant opposition from tenants for their personal gains.

He remarked: “When I took up this job at the helm of NHC , I knew that it would not be an easy ride; but rest assured that I will carry on tirelessly until I ensure that this corporation is transformed and when I feel that I can’t execute that job then I will resign but not easily or cheaply.”

He said in reality his management faced stiff challenge to put the corporation on a good track and that the work had already started by strengthening the financial capacity.

According to Mchechu, NHC had a balance of one million shilling in its bank accounts and that his team has managed to raise that balance to 10 billion for the current status.

NHC has plans to build 15,000 houses in the next five years, the number has been attained since its establishment in 1962.

According to the NHC plan, 2108 would be built at different areas in Dar es Salaam Region in the short term of not exceeding few months with the deadline set for October

The current shortage of residential houses and other problems facing NHC are attributed to the government’s decision not to subsidise the corporation, political interference, difficulties in accessing financial institution to borrow and high price of construction equipment.

NHC has a total of 3781 residential houses countrywide.

NHC houses for sale but…

The Ministry of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement Developments has finally declared that the Government will dispose of National Housing Corporation (NHC) houses for sale but with clear criteria to avoid any possible confusion during the process.

Minister Anna Tibaijuka made the declaration yesterday when addressing a meeting of NHC tenants at Karimjee Hall in Dar es Salaam, saying there was no longer argument as to whether the houses should be sold or not.

The key issue remained on the procedure to be followed for implementation of the decision. “Let us all get it right, we are not debating whether to sell the houses or not but the issue at stake is how to sell them,” noted the minister.

“This arrangement of ‘rent purchase scheme is not a new thing but we must be strategic as the entire process should be conducted in a transparent and participatory way,” she said.

On tenants who owned houses but still occupied NHC houses and leased them to other tenants for financial gain, the minister urged them to be honest as the government knew all the defaulters from available records of land and houses proprietors.

“We will analyse all the tenants and their status in terms of financial ability, age and employment, so let the NHC board and the management team come up with a proper procedure which will guide all of us for acceptable conclusion,” explained Tibaijuka, who a former chief of United Nation’s organization for Human Settlements – UN-Habitat.

She cautioned tenants, saying not all of the NHC houses could be sold out and reminded them that some of the houses were nationalised by the government in 1967 in the national interest and under the circumstances the issue of selling such units did not arise.

“I know there are houses to be sold as they are in bad state and NHC can not benefit from them, other houses are to be refurbished and therefore raise their value and be leased at a higher rent and other houses remain in the hands of NHC,” he said.

Earlier on the chairman of the tenant committee Mujengi Josephat Gwao queried NHC’s unnecessary delay in implementing government decision to sell the houses to the tenants.

“The laws are there, the President has announced the government decision since 2008 and the previous ministers Gideon Cheyo and John Chiligati have reiterated the government position. What are you waiting for?,” asked the old man as he quoted various acts and media reporting on the matter

The meeting almost ended prematurely when the General Secretary for Tanzania Tenants Association (TTA) Ndumeyi Mukama told the gathering that his countrywide members were not in support of the NHC tenants to buy the houses through national resources and therefore belonged to all Tanzanians.

“NHC tenants constitute just 0.45% of the country’s population, now how comes such a small group want to benefit from houses belonged to all nationals and neglect the larger section of 95.55%’

The statement caused the NHC tenants to shout furiously at the speaker, some of them urging him to go back to his seat.

The disorderly scene lasted for some eight minutes before minister Tibaijuka intervened and pleaded with the audience to listen to Mukama even if they disagreed with him.

One Gwakisa who identified himself as University student said the selling of the NHC houses was totally unacceptable and that since there was no good reason for such a move, university students would demonstrate to oppose it.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY