Crane Management Services has issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to be followed by tenants occupying all its buildings in Kampala as government looks forward to ease restrictions amid Covid-19 lockdown.
City arcades have remained closed since March this year when President Yoweri Museveni announced a total lockdown as one of the ways of controlling the spread of the deadly noval virus.
Early this week, during his state of nation address on Covid-19, the President said arcades were to remain closed before ordering the covid-19 national taskforce together with KCCA and Ministry of Health to select some arcades to pilot safety measures before opening all of them.
Addressing the media on Friday, Crane Management Services Managing Director Rajiv Ruparelia said they are prepared to open their arcades and that they have already ordered for hand washing machines, temperature guns that shall be placed on every entrance and exit of every building as per the Ministry of Health guidelines to ensure that the spread of covid-19 is controlled.
“This will be the case on all the entrances and exits of our buildings. We shall employ more security personnels to ensure that everybody is checked before entering and leaving the building and they they will also ensure that everybody wears a facemask as well as observing the social distancing. We shall also control the number of people entering the arcades,” Rajiv said.
“We will work hand in hand with our tenants to ensure that the guidelines are followed religiously because it our interest to open up these arcades for our survival.”
Commenting on the rent arrears accrued during the lockdown, Rajiv said that,“We are one big family. A building is useless without tenants. However, tenants can’t operate without a building. So we are like a marriage and this marriage is very intimate.”
Unfortunately, he said that government has not given any waivers to the real estate industry.
“If you look at it, URA has only deferred their payments. They have not said that this year we are going to give special considerations where we are going to write off taxes for companies. If you look at NSSF, they have not given any conditions where companies can reduce the liabilities to pay NSSF,” he said.
“All they are saying is that if you’re not going to pay in February or March pay in August. But that is not solving a problem as an economy or for landlords. Now even the Central Bank has given some ease to the commercial banks but does not tell the banks that we have given some special liquidity in order to be able to subsidize the interest that you will face because landlords cannot pay the banks. You see, when the tenant pays the landlord, the landlord takes the money and pays the bank,” he added.
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