Commission to Propose Rent Control Plan to Government

Source: Fiji Sun

The Fijian Competition Commission (FCCC) will propose phasing out the rent freeze and replacing it with a rent stabilisation policy.

During a recent press conference in Lautoka, commission chief executive officer Joel Abraham said the alternative policy would cushion the impact of the rent freeze removal.

"We know that there may be some landlords who will increase prices by more than 100 per cent and a lot of consumers get affected," he said.

He said this would be done through a rent control system where the rental rate will be adjusted on an annual basis using the Consumer Price Index.

"We will be working on implementing a system where rent increases are kept at a reasonable percentage annually, which ideally would be corresponding to inflationary pressures," he said.

"FCCC will stipulate what the adjustment rate for rental is and will do so annually in April."

He said while the FCCC was yet to make a formal announcement regarding this, it was still in discussions with the Government.

"We will be making recommendations to government to expand our enforcement branch as well to ensure that we're able to cover that segment of the market," he said.

"We believe that this strategy will enable us to have a data driven approach and also have informed and targeted interventions including regulatory policy and aligning to government's housing policy directions.

"We are undertaking the study to ensure that housing accessibility...we will be undertaking a very comprehensive analysis of the housing market and its dynamics."