By Buba Gagigo
National Assembly member Madi Ceesay of SereKunda West has repeated his familiar plans to push for a review of the 2014 rent act.
In his latest comments on the issue Ceesay told Investigative online journal Malagen that his next priority in the assembly is for a general look at the current situation of rent in the country.
” I have said it several times before that the state of the people who are renting needs to be looked at, as well as the mode of payments demanded by most landlords. In fact rent is increasingly becoming unaffordable to most Gambians,” he told Malagen.
Ceesay disclosed that the 2014 amended rent act still falls far below addressing the shortcomings that makes rent beyond the affordability of the people .
“Imagine a two -bedroom flat costing betweenD5000 or D6000 with a condition to pay six months’ or one year rent in advance. This means asking the poor tenant to pay D30,000 before he or she can enter a house. How many Gambians can afford that ? So this has been a big concernfor me and a priority to see that the act is amended. The act came in 2010, was amended in 2014 but it still has not amended pertinent issues,example the self-imposed mandatory six month advance demanded by landlords,’’ is one such un bearable condition faced by tenants,’’ he noted .