ONGWEDIVA – Ongwediva Town Council CEO Damian Egumbo has revealed that there are 4 901 people on the town’s housing waiting list.

Egumbo, in an interview with Nampa on Thursday, said 3 040 of the applicants are from the low income earner category, 1 628 from the high income earner category and 233 in the middle income earner category.

In efforts to address the housing backlog in Ongwediva, the town council has allocated 13 hectares of land to Development Workshop Namibia for housing for low-income earners.

The demand for land has seen residents of Mandume location erecting structures illegally. 

This was confirmed by Egumbo, who said during a routine inspection last month that their building control department inspected some structures in the location and marked them as illegal as is done with any structure constructed without a building plan and without the consent of the council.

“Unfortunately, without the consent of the two offices, they undertook an exercise of removing the structures. In total, five structures were removed. I want to state on record that this exercise was carried out without the consent of the council, and the council strongly condemns this exercise,” he said.

It was, however, noted that several structures were constructed in a similar fashion previously. 

These are currently inhabited, and the owners were invited to have the structures properly recorded.

Egumbo stated that no action will be taken against them, and the council is in the process of devising ways to formalise the structures.

He noted that there are vacant plots at the Mandume location that were recently serviced. These will be allocated to applicants on the waiting list.

Egumbo said the owners of the illegal structures at Mandume were relocated and received plots in Sky location.

-Nampa