The Labasa Town Council special administrator, Doreen Robinson, urged ratepayers who still owed outstanding rates to consider their obligation in the town’s development.

Unpaid Rates

So far unpaid rates contribute to a growing loss of revenue for the town council, hindering development.

Ms Robinson said they would shortly begin to take action against all collectable arrears including legal proceedings if necessary.

“It took due process for uncollectable rates to be removed from the overall arrears total which dated back to 2012,” she said.

Ratepayer Profiling

Ms Robinson said their ratepayer profiling exercise allowed them to identify those areas where arrears are collectable or not.

“Uncollectable arrears are a result of informal leases and death or migration of the ratepayer with no forwarding address left or probate carried out,” she said.

Property transfers was another contributor of uncollectable rates.

“We will like to see a marked improvement in rates collection and we are in the process of stepping up this exercise,” she said.

She did not provide figures on the money owed to the council through town rate arrears.

Questions were also sent to Savusavu Town Council chief executive officer, Seema Dutt, for an update on the rates collection for this year.

This was after the council introduced a 7 per cent discount on all unpaid rates.

Ms Dutt said his team would gather all information on these arrears and give all information to be published soon.

Story by: sampras.anand@fijisun.com.fj