The government is unable to track vacant homes and levy taxes, a setback to its efforts to stop the galloping rise in residential rents, an official with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development said. “We lack the ability to identify empty homes and impose taxes on them,” Ali Qaedi also told the state TV on Sunday. The official ruled out the possibility of the government’s direct intervention to regulate prices in the property market. “The government cannot follow a policy of controlling rents and is, instead, seeking to boost supply as a solution,” he said. Qaedi noted that any government-imposed rent rate might prove effective in the short run, but it could turn out to be problematic in the long run.
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