The DR Congo government has unveiled plans to digitize lease contracts. The strategy was launched last February 18 by Gentiny Ngobila Mbaka (pictured), governor of Kinshasa.

The government aims, through this plan, to create a database of rental properties so that it can easily identify both the owners and the tenants. This, in turn, will contribute to an efficient collection of rental property tax revenues.

The project will allow "the tax and financial service of the city of Kinshasa to monitor, in real-time, what the taxpayer has already paid. The city of Kinshasa, for its development, needs the participation of all Kinois (residents of Kinshasa, ed). The lease contracts are an important source of revenue because those subject to the tax on rental income are numerous and if they regularly paid this tax, the city would have the means of its policy," said the governor. The digitization project has been entrusted to the company Okab. The latter will provide the housing departments of the twenty-four communes of Kinshasa with the computer hardware and software necessary for the registration of rental contracts or books and the identification of lessors and tenants.

Ordinance-Law 69-006 of 10 February 1969 on the real tax of DR Congo stipulates in its "Chapter II: Taxpayers", Article 8, that "the property tax is due by the holder of the right of ownership, possession, emphyteusis, surface area, transfer, concession or usufruct of the taxable property, as well as by persons occupying, by a lease, real estate that is part of the private domain of the State, the provinces, the cities, and the communes, or of the assets of the districts."

Chapter III: Determination of the tax rate emphasizes in Article 13 that "an annual lump-sum tax is instituted as a property tax on built and unbuilt properties, the amount of which varies according to the nature of the buildings and the rank of the localities.”

Governor Gentiny Ngobila Mbaka pointed out that field teams in charge of digitizing lease contracts have already been trained and will soon be deployed first in the commune of Gombe which will serve as a pilot commune for the project.

Muriel Edjo