By Omar Bah
Kanifing Municipal Council has yesterday announced the introduction of General Tax Receipts (GTRs) to help facilitate easy and convenient payment of both commercial and residential rates.
The council said henceforth rate collectors will be issued with the GTRs.
“Property owners who cannot make it to the council offices can now make payments to our rate collectors assigned to their areas with staff identification cards bearing the KMC institutional logo. Furthermore, the council wishes to notify property owners who are yet to settle their liabilities to immediately do so as the council will be embarking on a massive revenue mobilisation exercise, and the cooperation of the general public is highly solicited,” the statement added.
Contacted for comments on what necessitated the introduction of GTRs, Mayor Bensouda said the council continues to face challenges when it comes to compliance, especially property rates, which are the biggest sources of revenue for councils.
“As we speak, arrears for rates have reached a staggering D300 million, which is unacceptable, especially in light of the many development projects our communities yearn for. Thus, as mayor, I endorse this new approach to make it easier for both taxpayers and collectors.”
Mayor Bensouda said despite all these challenges, the council remains very ambitious to bring about meaningful and impactful development for our communities.
KMC, he disclosed, has about 36,000 compounds and 87,000 properties in those compounds.
“But when it comes to paying rates, we have a compliance rate of less than 40 percent. This means that in every D100, when it comes to property rates, people are paying D40, and one of the major complaints has been the lack of payment centres, so people feel more convenient when we have collectors,” he said.
He said the introduction of the GTRs was based on feedback from the communities.
“The General Tax Receipt (GTR) has been used by our collectors for licenses for decades; however, this is the first time we will be using it for property rates. The reasoning for this new amendment is that we are experiencing compliance on residential property rates of less than 20%, while on licenses where GTRs are used, we have 90% compliance. Therefore, enabling rate collectors to use GTRs will be more convenient for tax payers and will improve compliance,” he said.
