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The agony of a tenant in Sierra Leone

By Umaru Fofana

It is a cliché that looking for a job in Sierra Leone, where two-thirds of the workforce are not employed, is easier than looking for a house to rent. It is a reality that hardly has any attention been given to the issue of housing in the country despite the civil war having made a terrible situation almost unbearable. The low cost houses in Kissy are virtually nonexistent. Where they do exist they are a health hazard.

Consequently there are squatters dotted on the coastline and overcrowded shacks splattered everywhere. Those who can afford it have been left at the mercy of landlords and landladies who worship money and dehumanise tenants. Tenants who sometimes have to worship their house owners who have become demigods. These property owners have thrived thanks to the failure by successive governments to come up with policies on the wide range of issues relating to housing and other basics.

The most obviously galling and neck-breaking is the payment of rent in a foreign currency. I have spoken to lawyers who say that the instruments they use to register the properties of their clients, for example, do not bar them from doing so in the US dollar. I have myself gone to the Roxy Building which houses the Registrar General and have seen such documents in US dollars.

Here, our currency is the Sierra Leone Leone but house owners charge in United States Dollar. Not even its equivalent in the local currency. You have to cough up the US dollar bills or you are shown the door. And such rents run into thousands of dollars. The authorities could not care less. It is the way of life in Freetown and it is gradually extending to the provincial headquarters with Makeni being the hardest hit. Thanks to the new kids on the mining block and the agribusiness find. Ironically even some of those in authority who have built houses sometimes after milking the money from the masses also rent out their houses in dollars. This leaves tenants with nowhere to complain and no-one to report to.

In Senegal, the only country that I have lived in outside Sierra Leone, it is an offence to ask for a foreign currency in any transaction. Walking on the streets of Dakar there are boards all over the place advertising apartments and landed property with contact telephone numbers of estate agents. The agents are powerful and are hardly a rip-off. Here the estate agents are not guaranteed by law and many of them have therefore become cheats who lie to unsuspecting tenants and fleece them.

It is an offence in Senegal to ask for more than a month’s rent at a time. It is an offence for the estate agent to ask for the rent in any currency other than the local CFA. In Sierra Leone it would seem the offence is actually to charge for a house rent in the local currency. What is more, even though the US dollar keeps appreciating against the leone, the landlord here can be audacious as to ask for an increase in his rent citing “hard times”. I once asked my landlord whether the hard times he cited for a rent rise did not apply to me and my family. That was before I pinned him down to educate him on the fact that the rise in the price of goods and services did not affect my rent because it was paid in US dollars. Nor had he added any value to his property to justify an increase in rent.

When you secure a house or an apartment in Dakar, which you must do through an estate agent and not the house owner, you are asked to pay three months’ rent upfront. A month rent is collateral which is refunded after settling electricity, water and telephone bills on leaving. Receipts must be produced to certify all of that before reimbursement is made. The agent is held accountable by the utility companies if the tenant leaves without settling their bills. Here it is commonplace to rent a house and inherit a huge electricity bill or water rate which you must either settle or go without the utility.

Another month rental in Dakar is for the estate agent. One month is advance rent which means that the last month you spend in the apartment you do not pay.

Your rent is also only paid at the end of the month, not before. In Sierra Leone you not only pay ahead but you also pay for a whole year and in some cases you pay for years.

The National Revenue Authority, a few years ago, asked that all tenants withhold ten percent of their rent as withholding tax. It led to some landlords evicting their tenants. Government sat by cross-legged and arms-folded watching people being punished for simply respecting a legitimate government dictate. And that fell on the way side, like with many other things in this country.

The concomitant effect of all this madness has meant that everyone is yearning to build a house at the slightest opportunity. The truth is that most of those who clamour to do so do not have the legitimate means to so do. So they resort to all sorts of antics and tactics to be able to acquire an extreme necessity.

It is common knowledge that when people are appointed into positions these days, they clamour to acquire as much land as their power and authority can beget them, the law-abiding ones continue to be at their mercy.

It does not require rocket science to know that an all-encompassing policy on land that addresses land acquisition and rent is badly needed. That the leaders of this country do not know this, yet continue in the positions can irritate anyone who cares a modicum for this country and its hapless and helpless masses.

I know that politics has colonised the governance in this country. So much so that when a panel of foreign environmental experts recently advised the government of Sierra Leone on High Risk Areas in Freetown, the government ignored the report because of the political implications of removing the people living there may have. As we will publish soon, one of those places was the King Jimmy Bridge area. If only they had been relocated those innocent souls – known and unknown – would have been saved.

But let us even give their political consideration a reason to be, since the majority of the people are not in corrupt business or politics and do not have a house of their own, it would help a great deal if a policy on the non use of foreign currency was developed. The majority poor people do not benefit from that. It seems the more we vote in this country the more the leaders turn a blind eye to the real issues, so long they do not give the leaders quick and corrupt money.

(C) Politico 10/09/13

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