Staff reporter
Windhoek
The Windhoek City Council has approved the allocation of the sale of 180 residential erven in Khomasdal Extension 16 to the youth. A total of 100 unimproved erven are designated for youths between the ages of 16 to 35 while 80 unimproved single residential erven will go to municipal staff members.
The 100 unimproved single residential erven to be sold to the youth have erf sizes ranging between 325 and 770 square metres and the upset prices are between N$84 567.31 and N$191 944.74. The unimproved single residential erven to staff members have erf sizes ranging between 322 and 762 square metres and the upset price is between N$83 967.54 and N$190 389.13.
City of Windhoek spokesperson Lydia Amutenya said the successful offerors would be notified through the local daily newspapers. Approval has been granted pending other verifications such as searches at the Deeds Office to determine if the offerors already own properties in Windhoek, as this was one of the requirements for this sale – that it was strictly for first-time buyers.
Amutenya said that in total the two tenders for the youth and staff attracted 4 421 offers and only 1 573 offers met the offer-to-purchase requirements but were subjected to further scrutiny.
Amutenya said they acknowledge the public discontent with regard to the protracted process in concluding the sale.
“Some went as far as alleging that the City of Windhoek has robbed the residents and is purposefully prolonging the process in an attempt to corruptly allocate the erven.”
Amutenya explained that this is not the case, adding that it is worth noting that the delay in concluding the transaction is attributed to the extension of the submission of the offer to purchase, which was extended to October 31, 2016, as opposed to the initial due date of October 21, 2016.
She said this was due to enormous demand by members of the public who could not submit their offer by the due date. “As a result, this subsequently led to the extension of the validity period of the offer to purchase until April 24, 2017.”
Amutenya said another positive outcome of this process was the development of the property sales system as per council resolution, which directed the development of a system that will be used in adjudicating the sale of property in the future.
She said the system was developed, and having been used in the sale under discussion, the property sales system has proven to be an excellent and reliable tool, which is unique to the city’s property sale function.
“This system reduces direct human handling to the minimum in order to safeguard against human error when processing the allocation of land to the successful offerors as per set alienation methods such as private treaty, tender and or offer to purchase. Therefore, as from now the data processing of land sales alienation will be adjudicated by means of this system.”