GOBABIS – Despite a flood of interest by housing developers the Gobabis Municipality is struggling to decently accommodate the majority of its citizens mainly due to a lack of serviced and proclaimed land.
According to the municipality’s spokesperson, Frederick Ueitele, erven are now being offered to developers provided they can service additional land as payment, in a unique twist on public-private partnerships (PPPs).
“Accommodation is one of the biggest problems in Gobabis and we have many developers who want to enter into PPPs with the municipality,” Ueitele told New Era. He explained how a developer, Shamrock Investment, which is interested in developing between 30 and 40 houses in Gobabis, has offered to service a piece of land adjacent to the proposed development on which they will build municipal bungalows and a guest house.
According to Ueitele ownership of the bungalows and guest house will then revert back to the municipality once construction is complete. He added that the Epako neighborhood alone is awaiting the servicing of 260 erven.
“Sometimes we are also left in the dark. We just have to wait for the surveying and the servicing to be completed,” added Ueitele.
He explained that due to lack of serviced land the mass housing programme has yet to kick off in Gobabis. The national initiative is supposed to start with 170 houses in the Epako neighbourhood, under the informal upgrading scheme.
However, he told of how numerous organizations, including the Indigenous People’s Business Council, Prodigy Investments, and the Namibian Petroleum Corporation (Namcor) want to establish facilities ranging from shopping centres to apartments and fuel storage facilities in the town that is strategically located on the TransKalahari Highway.
“We even have a group of private doctors who want to build a private medical centre here. We have progressed as far as asking people through the media to come forward if they have any objections to such a centre,” said Ueitele.
During a recent meeting the Chief Executive Officer of the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tarah Shaanika, called on government to embark on a mass land servicing programme.
“The fact that the problem of serviced land scarcity remains critical to date despite the 2011 NCCI Urban Land Conference recommendations to the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development, as well as several calls by the chamber and other stakeholders to speed up the surveying, proclamation and servicing of land, could be a sign that either there are serious bureaucratic bottlenecks in our system or simply lack of political will on the part of government to take corrective measures to address this critical economic and social issue,” noted Shaanika.
Shaanika added that the manner in which the issue of serviced land scarcity is addressed is a major concern to the business sector.
“The problem of land scarcity in this country is indeed real and very serious. It affects business development and economic growth in the country. It deprives many Namibians of an opportunity to have dignified shelter and comfortable homes. It has persisted for far too long and should therefore be addressed as a matter of urgency,” advised Shaanika.
Meanwhile, Ueitele elaborated on the Gobabis Municipality’s drive to replace ageing infrastructure, particularly electricity lines, which he said are being upgraded to increase the load capacity available to Gobabis residents and businesses.
The upgrading includes the substation, at a cost of N$5 million, new electricity cables, at a cost of N$2.5 million, and new high mast streetlights, at a cost of N$2.5 million. The funds for the upgrades are being provided by the central government.