THE Nasinu Town Council will request the Local Government Ministry to waive council rates for elderly ratepayers who face hardships.
Speaking during the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day celebration in Nasinu this week, council chairman Felix Magnus assured the elderly ratepayers they would be assisted.
“From the town council perspective, to acknowledge the day we are here to celebrate, I have called the debt recovery unit and asked that hardship debts in Nasinu be brought to me,” he said.
“I will sit with the honourable minister and see that these debts are waived because the elderly cannot be held accountable to debt over the years because they have served the community.
“We can only return that service by seeing that through the honourable minister, these debts, town council rates are waived for the elderly because of the hardships they face.”
Mr Magnus said they were looking at assisting between 2000 and 3000 elderly ratepayers.
“We have about 14,000 to 15,000 ratepayers here, so that’s the number we’re looking at.
“At the moment we cannot ascertain an amount, but we should be able to release those figures once we scrutinise all of them.
“We have to really scrutinise who’s facing hardships and who’s not.”
The purpose of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is to provide an opportunity for communities to raise awareness of the cultural, social, economic and demographic processes affecting elder abuse and neglect.
