31 Jan 2024

The property valuation exercise that Gaborone City Council is conducting will enhance its revenue generation efforts through property tax collection for all rateable properties in the city.

Speaking in an interview on Monday, Gaborone City Council senior estate manager, Mr Nyathie Mafoko said the data collection currently being undertaken would be followed by valuation of properties for purposes of determining the rates to be paid by property owners.

He said they were looking to value over 84 000 plots as per statistics from the last national housing and population census.

Mr Mafoko said while the council would be valuing all plots, there would be exceptions on property tax payments as no rates would be levied on churches, schools, civic and community plots and government facilities such as public libraries.

He explained that the city council had sectioned the city into three zones and had engaged three citizen-owned companies for the exercise, which he said started in December and would run for six months.

Mr Mafoko appealed to Gaborone residents and property owners to cooperate with those conducting the data collection, saying representatives of the three companies had registered incidents of resistance from people, with some prohibiting them from entering their properties, citing security reasons.

He said another challenge was that some landlords did not reside in Gaborone and their properties were occupied by tenants whose assistance to data collectors was limited.

Mr Mafoko explained that gaps identified in the data collected at the end of the exercise would be filled with assistance and collaboration with the Deeds Registry office.

On the positives, he said people had started paying their rates and service levy in good numbers ever since the city council embarked on the exercise.

 A resident of Extension 25 in Broadhurst, Mr Tsaone Mathame said with valuation technicians assessing properties on the outside only, it was likely that the exercise would fail to deliver the correct value of properties.

He complained that basing the valuation of a residential property on the living room, the kitchen and the built structure was insufficient in terms of determining its correct value. Ends