Tsumeb
Tsumeb municipality says its clients, including residents, businesses and government agencies, have a combined debt of N$72 million accrued from unpaid rates and taxes, as well municipal bills for sewerage and water services.
This is despite the council taking a decision to write off municipal debts of pensioners last year, which stood at N$8.3 million, a losing battle they fought for the past 10 years, because some pensioners were simply unable to clear their debts. Some owed in excess of N$100 000.
Before that Tsumeb residents owed the municipality N$94 million in outstanding water and energy utility payments, as well as other municipal services.
Difficulties collecting the arrears have hampered council’s efforts to accelerate the town’s growth agenda, despite having developed a debt collection database and policy, which enable them to see and pinpoint which clients have not been settling their municipal bills on time.
This was revealed during a joint meeting between the Tsumeb and Keetmanshoop municipalities, which was aimed at sharing ideas, skills and knowledge about areas where the two organisations have strengths and weaknesses.
The contentious land issue, township planning, job creation, hygiene, as well as community integration in town developments, were some of the issues discussed during the meeting.
“Debt collection is a big challenge, because people that lived in some parts of Tsumeb in the past were part of the liberation struggle and used that as way of opposing the colonial regime, thus these debts accumulated ever since then and later became hard for them to pay off.
“But we have come up with a debt collection policy, which states that if you do not pay municipal bills for a certain period then measures will be taken,” stressed Tsumeb municipality’s CEO, Alfeus Benjamin, while addressing the Keetmanshoop delegation.
“To strengthen the system we have assigned officials to different parts of the town, such as government offices, the business fraternity and locations to ensure compliance at all times, as each staff member has a specific group to closely monitor.
“So we make reminders and personal visits to such entities or individuals to tell them about their debts, and if they don’t, we are left with no choice but to cut them off,” he further stated.
Similarly, Mayor of Keetmanshoop Gaudentia Krohne said they are also fighting the same battle and are exploiting existing avenues to recover N$52 million owed by residents, businesses and government agencies.
“In our case we don’t have any strict interventions in place yet to curb the escalating municipal debts. “That’s why we are visiting different municipal towns to know how they are fighting similar problems and then we can also use those skills to improve where we are lacking,” Krohne stated.
Krohne was accompanied by a number of other councillors and later visited Otjiwarongo Municipality and would thereafter proceed to Ondangwa and also Oshakati.
Benjamin assured the delegation that their new debt collection system has showed some improvements and their revenue increased slightly. “We even offered a discount to pensioners, because of their level of income. Thus we allow them to pay half of what they are supposed to pay monthly,” he stated.