The Ombudsman’s Office of Esmeraldas remains on alert in the face of citizen dissatisfaction due to the increase in the value of the property tax.
Since the beginning of January the emeralds have starred and show their dissatisfied with the increase in the value of their property taxes.
Most complaints come from people who live from the daily, for example, a resident of the San Mateo parish, who paid 6 dollars last year and now has to pay a value of 40 dollars.
For its part, the Delegate of the Esmeraldas Ombudsman’s Office, Rocío Ávilaindicates that as an institution of public rights they are based on protecting the human rights of consumer users and in the face of the incidents exposed by the citizens in the Ombudsman, they decided investigate ex officio the rise in property taxes.
Ávila points out that as an ombudsman she is not opposed to raising property taxes; however, she opposes the violation of rights, to arbitrariness on the part of the people who issued the ordinance dated December 23, 2021 where they establish and speak of a signed study contract on updating the cadastre that will last 300 days. But from January 3 they proceeded to raise property taxes.
“I consider that there is arbitrariness in terms of raising property taxes, there is a consultancy that is working and they themselves have hired it to update the cadastre.”
On the other hand, the Ombudsman considers that the Comptroller should do an audit regarding the payment of taxes estates and as an institution will remain on alert until the contracted consultancy delivers the result of the study they have been carrying out.
Ordinance
The Organic Code of Territorial Organization (Cootad) It establishes that every two years the ordinances and the values must be updated to be able to issue rural properties as well as urban ones and when doing this update of appraisals implies an increase in values.
Consultation
The payment made from January to June receives a discount, both for seniors and people with disabilities. Citizens who want to consult their amounts to pay on property tax can do so at the citizen portal of the website of the municipality of Esmeraldas to avoid long lines at the window. (CS)
