KEETMANSHOOP – The Chief Executive Officer of the Keetmanshoop municipality Quinton Visagie has revealed plans to spend more than N$50 million on projects that will improve service delivery in the town.
This will include the procurement of new service vehicles worth N$3.6 million, the development of a new organogram at a cost of N$200 000, as well as a computerized property management system.
According to Visagie there is a serious lack of skilled employees such as draughtsmen and engineers at the municipality, which is partly the reason why the servicing of land in the town has moved at a very slow pace over the years.
He also noted that the municipality lost at least N$160 000 during the construction of the Build-Together houses in Tseiblaagte when four houses had to be demolished, because of poor workmanship.
“We must begin with the computerised property management system to stop the double booking of erven. This is not really a big issue, but it happens every now and then.
“This can also put us in a position to properly manage revenue, especially the debt heaped up.
“This will allow us to know which debt to write off and who to hand over to collection companies.
“We will only consider pensioners those that earn salaries will be handed over.
“We really need to upgrade our fleet, we have just bought an Audi for the mayor and we need six more cars for the technical service department and for the civil works staff,” Visagie said.
Two hundred erven will be serviced in Noordhoek in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture Water nd Forestry this year.
This venture is due to start this month as well as the commissioning of 100 erven in partnership with Old Mutual Namibia.
According to Visagie the municipality is also planning on using the N$5 million set aside for the tarring of roads in Keetmanshoop to tar 1.5 kilometres of gravel road in town, although the road is yet to be identified.
Meanwhile, Visagie said labour related issues will have to be addressed thoroughly this year.
“We will have to really concentrate on our staff morale this year, there is a serious communication breakdown between staff members occupying management positions and the councillors.
“We also have no chief technician, we have now appointed Joseph Sisinyi as Water Systems Coordinator he will also run the department for us until we have filled the position of Chief Technician,” he said.
By Jemima Beukes