Minister of Urban and Rural Development Erastus Uutoni has urged local authorities, such as the City of Windhoek, to make use of their permanent employees rather than assigning certain municipal functions to outside agencies.

The minister said many municipalities have contracted agencies, especially for debt collection, which, he said, has caused discontent among residents.

“Now our local authorities are being managed by agencies and you are there in offices. Now you want to tell me that no, you don’t have enough manpower. But how much manpower do the agencies have to run the whole municipal council, for example, the City of Windhoek?” Uutoni asked last week whilst handing over 53 new houses that were built under the Informal Settlement Upgrading Project in Windhoek’s Greenwell Matongo residential area.

Uutoni expressed shock after learning that houses that were built earlier are being repossessed.

Samora Machel councillor Nestor Kalola said some of the houses that were built under the project are being repossessed as homeowners are struggling with repayment.

Uutoni said this might be blamed on the debt collectors, who he said do not have patience with the residents.

“I want to talk about local authorities; maybe they are repossessed because maybe people can no longer afford it because they have just skipped one month of not paying for water. You have just skipped not even 60 days or 90 days, but immediately they are taken to debt collectors,” he said.

He called on local authorities to ensure that their staff members are well deployed to assist and properly advise the public.

On his part, City of Windhoek CEO Moses Matyayi told Nampa that while Uutoni is right regarding agencies, he said that local governments have complicated roles.

“I think the minister is correct in his context. But of course, the intricacies of the functions that we run, from technical to administrative, are not a straightforward thing. So, it’s a balancing act that you will have to do between what you have and what you need to actually offer to those that are demanding such services,” Matyayi said. 

Windhoek has enough land 

Meanwhile, Matyayi said the city has sufficient land to support housing initiatives aimed at formalising informal settlements in the nation’s capital.

Matyayi told Nampa on the sideline of the handover of the 58 houses in the Greenwell Matongo informal settlement on Tuesday, the Informal Settlement Upgrading Project (ISUP) is one of the initiatives currently being implemented in the city to provide decent housing to people living in informal settlements.

“As we see right now, the land that we currently have will be adequate to cater for a larger portion of the residents in the informal settlements because they are already there. And all we are doing is upgrading or doing construction of services and housing,” he said.

The National Housing Enterprise (NHE) and the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development are implementing the pilot ISUP to construct low-cost housing in the city’s informal settlements.

ISUP was launched in August 2020 and enabled many low-income earners to acquire formal houses through the project.

He further noted that informal settlement formalisation and upgrading programmes “are intertwined because they start with first servicing the land, and then the top structure comes later after the land has been serviced. Of course, this initiative is being funded by the government through the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development. We believe that the little movements that have been made so far will have a greater impact as we continue to have an incremental way of formalising the informal areas.”

NHE, which is the implementation agency of the ISUP, has already developed 652 houses under the project at a cost of N$124 million, according to the housing enterprise chairperson, Toska Sem.

Sem, in her remarks at the handover, said the houses were built and processed at a cost lower than N$200 000 per unit.

“In line with the NHE mandate, we are relentless in our drive to expedite the provision of quality and affordable structures for Namibians,” she said.

Plans are at an advanced stage to launch another new project in Windhoek to develop over 600 housing units in Otjomuise at an estimated cost of over N$150 million, she said. -Nampa

- Nampa