A section of lawmakers want a law put in place to ensure that during emergency situations like lockdown, rent arrears owed to tenants are waived off because they aren’t responsible for the calamities.
The call was made by Sarah Opendi (DWR Tororo) while receiving views from Kampala Capital City Traders Association (KACITA) on the Landlord and Tenant Bill 2021 by Parliament’s Physical Infrastructure Committee.
Opendi said there is need to provide for the new circumstances like lockdown and scenes condoned off during security investigations, citing recent bomb blast at Parliamentary avenue.
She explained, “I think the law doesn’t cater for certain calamities and unforeseen circumstances and I think it is important for us to take that into consideration because today is Covid, tomorrow could be something else. I think it is important to include a clause to cater for unforeseeable circumstances and in such incidences, the landlords need ad charge the tenants when the problem is neither caused by tenants or landlords.”
Opendi was backed by James Kaberuka (Kinkizi West) who said that during the first lockdown, President Museveni made pronouncement, barring landlords from evicting tenants during the closure, but some landlords defied this directives because the President’s orders weren’t backed by any law.
KACITA informed the Committee that when their body tried to intervene on the case of rent arrears that had accumulated during the lockdown, some landlords dragged KACITA to courts for trying to interfere with their businesses and only Aponye and Mukwano waived off rent arrears during the lockdown.
The Traders also welcomed the clause in the Landlord and Tenant Bill requiring landlords to give tenants a three months notice before increasing rent, which increment shouldn’t also be beyond 10% in a month.
Isa Sekito, the KACITA Spokesperson however warned the Committee that this proposal would receive stiff protest from landlords, who were crying foul that three months is too big a period and it is their right to determine when they can increase rent.
“So the time to notify someone to increase rent to KACITA, we think it is still reasonable because if you are going to increase my rent for three months, I would have a reason or a chance to either vacate after locating a different place where I am going to work from or organsie and be ready for your increment,” said Sekito.
KACITA also pleaded with Parliament to deal with the exorbitant charges landlords impose on utility either by providing for bulk meter systems controlled by tenants or have each unit on arcade installed with their own electricity and water meters, saying the current trend of landlords determining rates have left traders counting losses.
Sekito cited his shop where he sells television sets and when the yaka meter was installed, he was paying Shs200,000 yet his landlord used to bring a bill of Shs850,000 per month.
However, David Karubanga (Kigorobya County) asked KACITA how they would deal with the issue of costs of having each room in a building to have separate meters.
“Don’t you think it would be very difficult for some buildings to provide a separate meter for each room, water and electricity, you have a big arcade with over 50rooms would be difficult. Don’t you think managing bulk meters managed by tenants would help solve this?” asked Karubanga.
Sekito told the Committee that some tenants are willing to buy these meters, “Some tenants are even ready to procure their own meters, it is only reasonable that the bulky meters are easy to manage, but they are only abused by landlords.”
The Traders also welcomed the proposal barring landlords from charging rent in dollars, and although Ssekito proposed to have a clause to allow tenants who are willing to pay rent in dollars agree to this in their tenancy agreement, his counterpart Thaddeus Musoke (Secretary General-KACITA) disagreed with his counterpart saying the currency should be in shillings because tenants don’t have powers to determine the currency.
Sekito said, “It is important that we respect the Uganda shilling because it is the basis upon which we shall value it. If you don’t give weight to the Uganda shilling, nobody else will respect it. But we thought we could add a sub-clause that talks about the willingness between tenants and landlords. Some tenants are paying in dollars under duress, so the exchange rate volatility usually affect tenants.”
Karubanga however called for a balance, arguing that the landlords obtain loans in dollars and there is no need to be hard on them, but when the two parties agree to pay in certain currency.
Opendi insisted on maintain the clause on currency saying it will enable people respect the currency, “I think as a country, we need be proud of our currency. When I go to a hotel and you tell me this costs in dollars, I walk away because your first call is shillings not dollars.”
