For shallow minded tenants Atta Akyea’s continuous vituperations are welcoming. Of course he seems to be singing a very beautiful song for them. “Landlords cannot take more than six (6) months rent advance”. What they fail to see is the problems he continues to create for them with his pretence.
Yes, what he goes round saying is unfeasible and the laws he claims to be advocating for is an existing law but unimplementable.
Understandably so, he goes round pretending to be working for the ordinary man because he is a minister of state but those who know him know he has supervised and administered many tenancy agreements that were overly blind of the rent laws of Ghana.
In his attempt to show he cares he quoted Section 19 of the Rent Act 1973, Act 220, as amended by Rent Control law 1986 PNDC law 138, and Rent Control Amendment law 1986, PNDC law 163 gave a clear understanding of the behaviours that both tenant and their landlords should exhibit.
He is also quoted to have said that, the law stated that when a tenant was in arrears of one month, he or she could be evicted by the landlord, also when a tenant becomes a nuisance or put up an annoying conduct, he or she could be evicted, among other scenarios.
“A rent advance exceeding six months could land a landlord or lady in a two-year jail term. In all these circumstances, the law does not encourage self-help but ones recourse was the district court or a court of competent jurisdiction,” Honourable Atta Akyea in another twist.
Assuming the rent laws are implementable and tenants can successfully challenge their landlords in court to deny them (landlords) of what is being demanded for for the facility, hat happens after the tenure? What happens if a landlord decides to use his/her facility to rare fouls?
Assuming private landlords put up their facilities with Bank loans that require them to pay back in three years how do they fund the debt?
Assuming the landlords put up their facilities with all the fortunes they made over a long period and cost of food stuffs, cost of living, cost of transportation rise astronomically how can they take care of their needs?
Assuming landlords are entrepreneurs and would want to scale up their businesses how do they get funds to support their plans?
The prudent thing to do is for Honourable Atta Akyea, to build enough housing units for their people and stop making noises.
One wonders if Atta Akyea belongs to the government that prides itself with the economic principle that says ‘market forces determine prices’.
Source: Onua Kojo Nkansah
