Tenants need protection from unscrupulous landlords

Editor | Friday December 3, 2010 00:00

Regardless, in any country there will always be a tenant looking for a house to occupy and a landlord looking to benfit from his or her property through letting it out.  Perhaps what is peculiar to our situation is that accommodation is in such short supply for a country as big as Botswana and a town the size of Gaborone. This has driven rent rates through the roof. However, the most important and grave consequence of this state of affairs is that desperate tenants have to look around and interact with a largely lawless and greedy real estate industry.  The Real Estate Professionals law only deal with matters of registration for agents. It contains little in the way of governing the interaction between real estate agents and tenants. Furthermore general practice means that a tenant is always dealing with a landlord from a position of weakness. For example there is no law governing the bond. A bond is paid to the landlord or the owner of the property. It is the same landlord or real estate agents who later on determines what portion of the bond is to disbursed to the tenant when the contract elapses. The bond funds are granted to the landlord or real estate agent without any third party to govern the interaction between landlord and tenant. This means that the landlord or estate agent has all the power. We know that there are real estate companies who hold tenants hostage or seek to rip helpless tenants of bond funds. In many jurisdictions, there is an authority that oversees the agreement between tenant and landlord. Often this is in a form of a housing authority. The authority makes sure that both tenant and landlord discharge their responsibilities to each in an equitable way. In the absence of such a body, the tenant remains stuck, having to choose the lesser evil between an unscrupulous landlords and homelessness.

Clubs should participate in CAF competitions

Local clubs, Township Rollers and Mochudi Centre Chiefs have passed up the opportunity to participate in the CAF Champions League and Confederations Cup respectively. The Champions League is CAF's flagship club competition while the Confederations Cup has improved in statue in recent years following decent sponsorship.

Most local clubs that participated in CAF competitions in the past usually went out early, mainly with embarrassing defeats. Some were demoralised, but others like Gaborone United saw every reason to participate despite several shortcomings, both on and off the pitch. Participation in African club competitions is financially taxing and can be morally draining if there are good results. But this is no reason for clubs to decide against participation. How will they get experience and grow? Playing in CAF tournaments should be taken as part of development. Our clubs should be eager to measure their strength against the best in the continent. Local clubs should take advantage of the limited tournaments that CAF offers to gauge themselves against foreign opposition.

                                                             Today's thought

'This is a travesty and everyday tens of thousands of people are still being put at risk by unscrupulous real estate agents.'

                                                                - Harj Gill