Suara.com – Acting Governor of DKI Newsdelivers.com Heru Budi Hartono had planned to end free rental fees for low-rent flats (rusunawa) in the capital city in December 2024. However, it is now certain that Heru has canceled this plan.
This was said by the Acting Head of the DKI Newsdelivers.com Public Housing and Settlement Area Service, Afan Adriansyah. Afan said that his party agreed to a request from the DKI DPRD so that the Provincial Government would not charge rental fees for flats.
“In principle, the Governor supports the postponement of rent levies from January to June, that is clear,” said Afan in his statement, Sunday (25/12/2023).
Meanwhile, Chairman of Commission D DPRD DKI Newsdelivers.com Ida Mahmudah supports the extension of the policy of eliminating rental fees. According to him, this policy is needed because there are still many flat residents who have not been able to recover their economic conditions which have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, Ida said that the balances of residents who had been automatically withdrawn for payments in December 2023 would be transferred for payments in July 2024.
“The result of the decision is that for Rusunawa residents throughout DKI Newsdelivers.com who have not been debited at this time, they do not need to be paid, while those who have been debited (automatically deducted from the account) will be included as payments for July,” said Ida.
It is known that flat rentals have usually been free since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The aim is to ease the burden of life for low-income people (MBR) who live in flats during the pandemic.
This levy rate relief policy is regulated in DKI Governor’s Regulation Number 61 of 2020 concerning Providing Relief from Regional Levy and/or Removing Administrative Sanctions for Retribution Compulsory Persons Affected by the COVID-19 National Disaster. At that time, the regional head who signed this regulation was Anies Baswedan.
Residents of flats are exempt from rent from April 13 until the central government ends the designation of Covid-19 as a national disaster. However, free flat rental does not include other costs, such as water and electricity bills.
The reason why the DKI Provincial Government provides an exemption from flat rental fees is to reduce the cost of living for residents due to the COVID-19 pandemic whose purchasing power has weakened due to the PSBB regulations. As a result, many residents are in arrears on their flat rental fees.
Then, the DKI Provincial Government once again collected flat rental rates which refer to the 2018 rates in accordance with Governor Regulation Number 55 of 2018 concerning Adjustments to Housing Service Levy Rates. However, collection of the flat levy has been postponed again for the next six months.