Eviction notice on Mbowe property expires today

MBOWE Hotels Limited (MHL) has only today to settle rent arrears of 1.3bn/- owed to the National Housing Corporation (NHC) or risk eviction from the building it occupies along Mkwepu and Indira Gandhi (Makunganya) streets in the Central Business District of Dar es Salaam.

This follows a notice by the state-owned real estate developer on June 24, this year, to terminate the leasing agreement and a follow up warning by court broker Fosters Auctioneers and General Traders, which expires today.

Efforts to get comments from the court brokers were not successful and impeccable sources told this newspaper yesterday that the company which is owned by National Chairman of CHADEMA, Mr Freeman Mbowe, was yet to settle the outstanding arrears.

Mr Mbowe was last week quoted by some media outlets describing the outstanding arrears as ‘political persecution’ meant to silence him, admitting, however, that there have been disputes between the two parties.

The Director General of NHC, Mr Nehemiah Mchechu, confirmed of the looming eviction of MHL when responding to queries by the ‘Daily News’ during a news conference convened by the corporation on its mission to put up residential houses in the designated capital of Dodoma.

“It is true that we have served the tenant with the notice to vacate, Mbowe Hotels Limited is among three top defaulters of rental charges among private sector tenants,” Mr Mchechu explained.

Investigations by this newspaper have revealed that NHC and MHL have been at logger heads for years following a failure by the latter to fulfill its obligations stipulated in shoddy joint venture agreement entered by the two parties in 1997.

On February 16, last year, the housing corporation wrote to MHL notifying it on its intention to terminate the re-development and co-ownership agreement on the property.

Sources confided to this paper that the housing corporation issued a notice of termination after MHL failed to respond and sign a revised draft Joint Venture Agreement which was sent to the company on January 18, 2015.

The building, which houses the famous entertainment spot in the city, Club Bilicanas, is among structures nationalised by the government through the Building Acquisition Act of 1971 and placed under the then Registrar of Buildings, the predecessor of NHC.

MHL had on several occasions tried to purchase the building in vain but even after it entered into the joint venture agreement with NHC it failed to make good on pledges to expand the structure.

The company had pledged to construct an ultramodern international multipurpose function hall by renovating the old backyard and renovating the right wing into an international standard casino and upgrading the left wing into a two-storey 100-room international standard hotel, among others.