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Belmont Hotel ordered to pay NSSF Sh1 billion

By  Bernard James

Dar es Salaam. Belmont Fairmount Hotel Limited in Mwanza Region has been ordered to pay its landlord, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Sh1 billion in outstanding rent.

The court decision is yet another setback for the once famous hotel that was forcefully evicted from the NSSF building in October 2019 for non-payment of rental charges. The hotel had rented a space in the building for five years since October 2016 at agreed amount of Sh1.5 billion but has since struggled to settle rent. It paid only Sh600 million

Before occupying the building, the Belmont Hotel was given two month grace period for minor renovations.

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It got a reprieve in September 2017 when the parties agreed to harmonise the rent that saw the amount being reduced to Sh45 million per month from Sh60 million agreed previously.

NSSF says it had to contract Yono Auction Mart to evict the hotel in September 2019 after all efforts to recover Sh991 million of unpaid rental charges proved futile. Located at the heart of Mwanza City, the hotel had attracted visitors from across the country. It contained a restaurant, conference rooms, 38 bedrooms, a swimming pool and wide range of accommodation services.

The hotel blamed the delays in paying the rent on operational setbacks they faced immediately after occupying the hotel space. They claimed they communicated with their landlord over the need to repair the building and equipment such as air conditioners, hot water system, and electrical installations. “We put issues like defective elevators, fire extinguisher and unpleasant kitchen floor tiles to the plaintiff’s (NSSF) attention on March 10, 2017.

“That it took the plaintiff (NSSF) three good months to fix the defects hence the delay in commencement of the business. For that reason, a number of customers kept away and the business went so down,” they argued.

The hotel’s executive director, Mr Philemon Tei, had told the court that they had paid NSSF Sh600 million by the time they were being sued and that the alleged Sh900 million outstanding rental claim wasn’t real. “The plaintiff (NSSF) did not prove the outstanding rent amount but prematurely evicted the respondent (hotel) without considering the amount of money the defendant had injected for renovation,” they argued.

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