OKAKARARA – Some elderly residents of Okakarara live in anxiety, saying they are traumatised by the prospect of losing their homes, which may be sold in execution of outstanding debts accumulated over the years despite a directive from the line ministry to shelve the demands for liquidation.
The Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development has instructed the town council to put evictions or demands for payments on hold. One of the affected pensioners Hildegard Kamandoora (65) said she has accumulated debts exceeding N$54 000, dating back from when she inherited a two-bedroom house from her brother, Gabriel Katjiri, who passed away in 1988. She added that the water has been cut off for the past ten years and she has been fetching water from her neighbours. Showing receipts of money she paid for rent, transfer fees and other related expenses for the property, the elderly woman who lives with her daughter and four grandchildren complained that the Okakarara Town Council has been writing off debts for some elderly people but not hers.
As if that is not enough, Kamandoora said a government tractor allegedly ran into her house damaging it but nobody has come to compensate her despite several promises to do so by council officials. “They (Okakarara Town Council) told me that they will take my house. It was in July,” she said, adding that it was then that she took the matter up with Okakarara Regional Councillor Vetaruhe Kandorozu. Kamandoora says despite that, she is being inundated with letters from lawyers threatening to evict her from her house if she does not cough up. The High Court served her with a writ of execution on August 21, 2012 for her to pay N$54 348.25 or to risk losing any movable assets or property to satisfy the writ. “Despite a diligent search no attachable assets or property of defendant could be found to attach to satisfy the Writ of Execution. Therefor(e) my return is nulla bona (no goods),” reads High Court records, signed by lawyer Kaijata Kangueehi of the law firm Hengari, Kangueehi & Kavendjii Inc., which is representing the Okakarara Town Council.
Another elderly man, Christof Kavita (65) said he took over his father’s house when he died in 2004 and has accumulated debt of N$38 000. The man, who works as a security guard and lives with his wife and six young children, said he tried to get the town council to write off the debt but without success. “They have written off debts for elderly people in Rehoboth, Windhoek and Grootfontein, but not us. Why?” he asked.
A woman who sells ‘kapana’ to make a living, but who did not want her name mentioned said she is also in the same dilemma as the house she inherited had also accumulated a debt of N$22 000. She has apparently been inundated with letters from the law firm Hengari, Kangueehi & Kavendjii threatening to sell her house if she does not pay up. She said that she made a payment of N$4 000 with the lawyers last year and then made arrangements to pay the rest in monthly installments of N$400 at the beginning of this year, but could not keep up with the installments and defaulted over five months. The woman said she even tried to negotiate for a lower monthly payment of N$300, but apparently the lawyers ‘wrote off’ the N$6 400 she has paid to date. Now her balance stands at N$21 600, when it should in fact have been N$15 600.
Regional Councillor Kandorozu said that the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development wrote a letter to the local authority to suspend ‘kicking’ people out of their homes, but the local authorities appear to be doing little to call off their lawyers. Lawyer Kaijata Kangueehi of Hengari, Kangueehi & Kavendjii Inc. says he does not understand how the regional councillor could have intervened. “The moment the matter is handed over to my office, they must speak to me to make (payment) arrangements,” he said, maintaining that the demand for payment still stands as is and the town council has not advised him otherwise. He said that instead of paying the debts, people have the habit of running to the media.
“The responsibility still lies with them. The demand stands for as long as they have not paid their debts,” he added, saying that Kamandoora and others who are in default must call his office in order to make payment arrangements. “She is not the only person, there are over a hundred people (with debts) who come and give proposals on how to pay,” he said.
The CEO of the Okakarara Town Council, Nathan Karuaihe, said that those affected, especially pensioners can come to their offices so that they can look into their plight. “There might be genuine cases, that’s why if people are affected, they must come forward,” he said, adding that the situation could be redeemed, as they are the ones who instructed the debt collectors. He however cautioned that there are able-bodied and young people who are employed and who hide behind the pensioners in order to live rent-free.
Karuaihe said that when the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development gave the directive to send the list of pensioners who are unable to pay municipal bills, the town council had already sent a list of those who defaulted to their debt collectors. “That’s when we found out it was difficult to identify those that can’t pay,” he said, adding that some young people even registered the elderly on their homes to avoid paying or so that outstanding bills could be written off. He said at the end of the day, government would lose out since the ministry might have to subsidise the pensioners’ houses.