By Ragan M. Conteh

The Chief Administrator of the Freetown City Council (FCC), Tom Famer has disclosed that the property rate cadastral system indicates a sum of over Le130 billion arrears are not being able to be paid since 2022 to date.

He went further to say that in 2023 fiscal year they had been able to generate a total of 36.2 billion.

He made this disclosure during the probing of their activities by the Finance Committee in Parliament.

According to him they generates these money through different sources of revenue including property rates, business licenses, market dues and fees charges, hall rentals, municipal fines among others.

He said they used to have own source revenue 45 billion Leones, but for 2023, due to electioneering period, they were only able to generate 6.2 billion.

In 2024 for the first quarter alone they are able to 13.62billion Leone.

He said they are making a steady progress despite the fact that they are unable to meet their projected target for the year.

He said in 2022 there are so many factors contributed for their failure to meet their target and one of the factors is the electioneering process because during election period tax payers are very reluctant to pay taxes.

He revealed that since the political will is not there politicians will not enforce laws on taxpayers to pay taxes especially during electioneering periods.

He stated that the institution has problem of compliance, adding that there are a good number of business people who are unable to comply with taxes payment especially on property rates.

The CA said they have started seeing some tremendous progress in quarter one of 2024 and he credited the steady progress on them enforcing the laws.

He maintained that they have bigger businesses that are unable to pay taxes over time citing defaulters like Sierra Leone Ports and Habour Authority (SLPHA) Bolore Company and others.

He said FCC went there and did enforcement of taxes to be paid to FCC, adding that series of hotels were not being to comply to do payments.

He said during the COVID-19 period there were concessions of about 30% given to businesses because they understood it was a period of crisis at the time.

He pointed out that after the COVID-19 they summoned all these businesses and undertook community engagement and also sent legal letters ahead of their enforcement.

He said one of the challenges they had was that they were not being able to enforce the laws.

He said the FCC has done engagement with the Chief justice and wants to ensure they establish municipal court against defaulters, the Chief justice assured FCC.

He said this will enforce compliance in terms of tax collection.

He said even though they are collecting taxes they also have to show taxpayers what FCC is doing with their monies.

He stressed that they are planning series of programs to show to the public on the development the council is doing especially with the construction of the market at Wilberforce and other projects.