Thousands of Landlords and tenants in the Suhum Municipality of the Eastern Region yesterday hit the streets to register their displeasure over what they described as killer property rates imposed by the assembly.
According to them, they were they up-in-arms with the municipal authorities because of astronomical increases in property rates which were far above those in Accra and the Eastern regional capital, Koforidua.
Registering their protest with numerous placards, the angry landlords pointed out that a house valued at GH10,000.00 attracted a property rate of GH7.7 in Ga West, GH8.5 in Koforidua while at Suhum, it was GH50.00.
They demanded an explanation from the Municipal Assembly why landlords in Suhum were being charged higher rates than their counterparts in Koforidua and Accra, which are the regional and national capitals respectively.
The landlords including old man and women, led by the executives of the Landlords Association of Suhum (LAS), converged on the Suhum roundabouts as-early as 6 o�clock in the morning where they started their peaceful demonstration.
They held numerous placards with inscriptions such as �Rubber stamp assembly members shame unto you,� �We don�t want Kwabi,� �Suhum Assembly we cant pay these gargantuan property rates.�
After marching through the principal streets of Suhum, the demonstrators later converged on the offices of the assembly where they presented a petition to the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) Samuel Kwabi.
The leader of the demonstrators, Henry Kofi Akomeah, also pointed out that �base ratable� value of 0.005 was on the high side, asking the assembly to reduce the value to 0.001.
Mr. Akomeah also called on the municipal assembly to look at the base rates for commercial and mixed rates, which he said were on the high side.
The landlords, he side, had given the authorities in the assembly two weeks to heed their request or else they would continue to hit the streets until their demand had been granted.
Mr. Akomeah indicated they were resisting new rates because some of the charges may have to be passed on to tenants, majority of whom find it difficult to make ends-meet as a result of the current economic hardship in the country.
The landlords, he hinted, were ready to pay the new rates, if it came to the worse, but pleaded with management of the municipality to maintain the old rates for the year 2013 as agreed earlier.
Receiving the petition, the MCE, Samuel Kwabi, called on the residents to exercise patience since his leadership was there to improve the standard of living of the people and not to unleash hardships on them.
He said the decision on the property rates was collectively taken by the general assembly through the laid down procedure of arriving at such fees.
Mr. Kwabi said it would, therefore, be difficult for him to decide to reduce the rates without recourse to the general assembly.
He pointed out that for the past 19 years; the assembly could not collect its property rates even as it was using unscientific method to determined how much a person was to pay.
Mr. Kwabi said the assembly just engaged the services of experts for property rates valuation in the municipality.
The MCE, who initially sped off in Nissan Patrol car after seeing the demonstrator to improve lives through massive development projects which could only be done through taxes.
He called on the residents to support the assembly�s drive to develop the rate.
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