Rundu Town Council’s caretaker Sebastian Kantema says the town is struggling to deliver effective services, as it has depleted its funds that would allow for swift and quality service delivery.
Kantema has thus urged residents of the town to pay their municipal rates and taxes on time.
Rundu, at the moment, is unable to rehabilitate its gravel and tarred roads, as the council is crippled financially. This, according to Kantema, is partly due to the town’s inhabitants who do not come forth to play their part of paying their rates and taxes. The situation has worsened since local authorities were ordered to reconnect disconnected residents as per instructions related to the Covid-19 pandemic measures.
“Residents should take note Rundu is our town and those of us who owe the town should pay so that we can provide much-needed services in return,” he said.
“There was a tender that was given out although not in the right way; what we are going to do is just to redo that one so that we can address the situation. The problem with Rundu is that we don’t have enough funds but [with] the little we get, we will try to have at least one or two roads repaired. Our roads are really in bad shape – be it the gravel or tarred roads. One cannot proudly say that we are a town, but with the little resources that we have, we are going to try and see how to improve,” assured the caretaker administrator.
Last year, the Rundu council decided to initiate an incentive programme that ran from 1 November 2019 to 30 June this year, where council would waive off interests to clients that came forth to pay their debts. This was done after observing that the collective outstanding debt of residents and institutions was close to N$200 million.
The outstanding balances attract an interest rate of 1.67% per month and 20% per annum. This will certainly put extra payment pressure on residents.
Katema further said residents not forthcoming to pay their water accounts should know that their bills will keep increasing and their interest and debt will be too much to pay. “At least pay whatever you have; there’s no free meal in this world.
The water that we reconnected is being paid for; the stimulus funds will pay for it,” stated
Kantema.