Ilala municipal council excels in property tax collection

THE Ilala Municipal Council in Dar es Salaam region has collected a total of Sh. 4.1 billion in property tax as up to May this year for the 2014/15 financial year, a municipal official has said. The Ilala Municipal Public Relations Officer Tabu Shaibu said in an exclusive interview mid this week in Dar es Salaam that, this is equivalent to 90 percent of the total targeted collections of Sh. 5.3 billion. She said, the municipal council has put down various strategic means in order to boost property tax collection since the last evaluation of the individual properties were carried out within the municipality in 2012. The exercise which was done by help of World Bank, introduced some changes that mainly focused on payments according to the values of individual properties including those who live in informal unplanned settlements.  Before the changes made in 2012, individuals who live in informal settlements had a flat rate of Sh. 10,000 paid annually irrespective of the value of their houses since 2000 when their properties were titled with property settlement licenses issued by three municipal councils in Dar es Salaam region. Statistics made available by the Ilala municipal council shows that, this is a tremendous increase compared to other preceding years whereby properties in informal settlements had a flat rate of payment schemes. Statistics shows that, there has been an increase of 100 percent for the last five years since 2010/11 whereby the council had collected a total of Sh. Sh2.8 billion from Sh. 2.2 billion collected in 2009/10 financial year, compared to this year’s collections. In 2013/14 financial year, just two years after the initial evaluation of properties was made, the council collected a total of about Sh. 3.5 compared to Sh. 3.1 collected in 2012/13 financial year. This year’s sudden increase is attributed to a joint collective efforts by the municipal officials in collaboration with the ward executive officers to ensure timely payments are settled down to avoid inconveniences which might come that would be accompanied by severe penalties according to the reviews made on city’s by-laws. Property tax collections is the major source of revenues which the municipal councils in Dar es Salaam region relies on and is among the largest chunk for which most development projects are depended on. In addition to that, the municipal also relies on the subsidy which is being issued by the central government for help in both development and recurrent expenditures for the municipal councils. Other sources of revenues are small levies collected from the small scale traders, business licenses from business people, land title deeds.