Despite its viability, however, the collection of property taxes in many African countries has been hampered by huge technical challenges. In most countries, there barely exist street names and house numbers. This is often compounded by difficulties in keeping property registers updated and a lack of professional property valuers.
The large property owners are usually influential people who, in most cases, have vested interests and the power to lobby to ensure that they do not pay taxes on their property.
Exploring these issues further and thereby highlighting the drawback of not having a decent property tax regime could help to reform tax systems in many African countries to raise the much-needed revenues for public services and development projects.