More than $15million in Arrears on State Lands
The Ministry of Lands is owed $15, 243, 522.95 in arrears from people living on State lands.
This is because some lessees had not been paying their annual lease. This was relayed by the divisional land manager Central Eastern Janice Reuben last week to the Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources, Filimoni Vosarogo.
Ms Reuben said the biggest challenge was trying to collect outstanding rates since they did not have a debt collection policy.
“The arrears are on the lease money that people living on State land had to pay annually. When people living on State land do not pay their lease annually, they become arrears.
“Arrears had increased during the coronavirus pandemic period because many people were not paying their leases. They were either without a job, or their pay was affected,” she said.
She said some people living on State land were still paying $2 repayments for leases in the Central and Eastern Divisions.
“We cannot increase the fee because the rent freeze is in place. This is one of the greatest challenges we are facing,” she said.
“The ministry wants to impose new rent fees, but the rent freeze imposes State lands too. We do assessments but we cannot impose it. “In the past few years, we had tried imposing it on State land, but we were legally advised by a lawyer that we could not because of the rent freeze.”
Mr Vosarogo said to address the issue of arrears; they would look at enforcement provisions.
“We understand that in the past, two people were affected from the coronavirus pandemic that to an extent affected people’s mean to pay their lease,” Mr Vosarogo said. “These are arrears that need to be collected. Right now we are consulting with the management to see how these arrears could be collected. Once I get some advice from them, I will take it up to the Prime Minister.”
He said he would also look at reviewing the rent freeze law.