The Suva City Council has proposed the introduction of a “name and shame” approach to recover $37,958,703.21 million rate and rental arrears from ratepayers.

The $37.9 million in arrears have accumulated through default payment among 11,401 ratepayers for rate and rental arrears until 30th September 2024.

Out of the total amount of arrears to date, $229,799.21 is from rental arrears while $37,728,904 million is from rate arrears prior to and post-2016 to 2018.

Manager Debts Recovery Navneet Kishore says the accumulation has been attributed to causes that range from ratepayers reluctant to pay due to deteriorating services, genuine hardships encountered by ratepayers, to deceased ratepayers.

“So … these are reasons behind where these ratepayers are continuing to not to make payments, as a result, they are affecting our books and as a result, the areas continue to increase – because the interest continues to be charged on those outstanding accounts.”

Kishore says they have encountered challenges in the collection of rate and rental arrears through various methods; including high-interest charges, lack of resources and information to manage the arrears owed by ratepayers.

“We noted there were financial constraints faced by the ratepayers … it remains a drawback to the council. The effect of COVID-19 also put us in a lot of trouble and challenges in terms of recovery of those rate arrears.”

Kishore adds ratepayers with outstanding arrears take advantage of the issues faced by SCC, and even take lightly the actions to take them to small claims and civil courts.

He further says they have considered investment in a formal survey to analyze the causes of default in payment of arrears, but it requires expertise and resources.

The Suva City Council states that it intends to investigate issues in detail, in order to have strategies to collect arrears on time, through its committee for arrears.