The Colombo Municipality said yesterday that tax defaulters owed the municipality over a billion rupees in rates and that many of the private properties that had defaulted would be auctioned next month.

CMC Commissioner Badrani Jayawardene said notices had been published in the local papers giving the dates on which the properties would go under the hammer. She said the notices had spurred some of the owners to pay up the outstanding amounts.

“We published a public notice giving the addresses of the properties for which the owners have not paid the rates and taxes. After the notice appeared in the newspapers several owners paid up, but the rates and taxes on several more properties were still outstanding,” she said.

Ms. Jayawardene said more than a billion rupees was still owed to the Municipality as rates and taxes and that according to the law as it exists at present, properties could be acquired without going to Courts if the owners had defaulted on the payment of rates and taxes.

“According to the existing Municipal Law the Council can recover tax money at any time without proceeding to court action. We have not done it and we were lenient with our tax payers. We are compelled to resort to auctioning the properties because some of the owners had for years defaulted on the payment of the rates and taxes,” she said and added that such an auction was being held after some four years.

It would be held during the first week of January. (Chathushika WIjeyesinghe)