Re: Assistance - VERY URGENT!

What I have to narrate now, is further evidence of what an incompetent Council we have in this town....., sorry, city.

They might be computerized but, their brains and attitude are still some time in the early 20th Century...., long before anything digital was discovered.

The following is what they have been doing...

On the 29th July 2008, my maid, who was sweeping the stairs encountered a man who gave her two sheets of printed paper purportedly from the Council. One was for me and the other for my immediate neighbour. These are dated 28th July 2008. They are notices to us of 7 days within which to pay ridiculously high amounts which the Council claims are arrears in rent.

This claim is totally ridiculous, since, we've been paying our rent regularly and even in advance. Mine is paid up till December 2008! Therefore, how did we get into arrears with our rent? The claim written on the notice to me, is a rent in arrears of 13 months and the amount being, 30,000/-! That is the mega question which nobody can, it seems, satisfactorily answer.

In the company of a representative of the Coast Lobby Group, Mr. Bakari, I went to see the Director of Housing and Social Services at the Council. We showed her my receipts and the stress causing notice from her various minions and she too, claimed ignorance about the notice...., i.e. why I should be served with one considering I was paid up till the end of the year.

Therefore, she rang up somebody whom she addressed as 'Miriam' and asked her why I was served with such a notice since I had proper receipts from this same Council confirming my payment till December. Unfortunately, we couldn't make out what this 'Miriam', told her, but, the Director, later tried to explain that due to computer errors (one wonders if the computers at the Council are 'alive' and make the errors or the persons operating them who feed in questionable information!), they wanted me to go with all (and from personal experience the more the better, i.e. for as long ago as possible!), my receipts to the Tudor ex-rent collecting office and have them make a proper record of my various payments.

So, this morning, in the company of a Nation reporter, Mr. Bakari and a colleague of his, we all paid the Tudor office a visit. There, we spent quite lot of time, but after studying all my receipts from way back in 2006, we were told that I now owed the Council 13,925/-. When they were asked why, despite having paid up till December 2008, we were told that the rent had been increased to 2300/- from what I've been paying - 1375/-, per month.

Now, this is news to me, as nobody in my estate has been served with a written notice of one month as the tenant/landlord agreement states in 5b. Therefore, how can the Council claim any arrears? Or is this a warped kind of thinking on the part of the Council to try and legitimize it's rent hike by trying to tell us that they are trying to 'correct' computer errors....?!

Also, since they have given us receipts of the amount paid with no indication that we owed them any other amount, how can they claim that we're in arrears as they haven't even abided by their own agreement with us as referred to above. And then, this Council has the temerity to send us threatening notices of eviction if we don't pay up their trumped up arrears. They sound more like the mafia than a Local Authority.

Another point is that this Council as a landlord is not interested in anything but collecting money by fair means or crooked and in this case it's more crooked than fair. They have not maintained these flats since decades, yet, keep increasing the rent without giving due notices. All of the top floor flats are leaking and despite many complaints to them, they have done nothing to rectify this. Therefore, on what grounds are they increasing rent and this time by more than a 100%?!

They do nothing about the many breaches of the tenant/landlord agreement by my neighbours who are running businesses from their premises and also are disturbing and harassing me when I complain. They (the Council), breaks its own by-laws by allocating a road reserve to a private developer who 'developed' one-third of the plot into a block of flats which have subsequently been sold to individual buyers and the remaining two-thirds is being used as a truck, tractor, earthmover, garage, junk-yard, etc., whose gate is through the estate. These monstrosities, are revved at all hours for hours on end as well as they come and go at all hours of the day or night. When they want the gate to be opened by the resident watchman, they hoot with complete disregard of the time of night. And this is just one example. There are quite a handful of others...., just in this estate.

They have also allowed one of my neighbours to keep a glue sniffing street 'boy', to sleep under our staircase. Is this place on it's way to becoming a 'haven' for squatters? Why isn't the Council doing anything about all of these issues which I have complained about to them umpteen numbers of times in the past? Therefore, one can't help but, reach the conclusion that our Council is not in the least interested in improving services to the residents and is becoming more like the proverbial Mafia - they've taken to intimidating the residents on pain of eviction if they don't part with their hard earned cash by pretending that their computers make errors all on their own!

Who will reign in such a Council?

Razia.

elijah agevi wrote:

Thanks for the updates and yes you are in our prayers! Yes today will be different and will bear fruits.

Mungu si asumani! and May justice prevail.

Regards,
Elijah