Gobabis residents owe municipality N$50 mln

Gobabis residents owe its municipality about N$50 million in unpaid municipal bills, its chief executive officer, Ignatius Thudinyane, has said.

The town has about 25 000 inhabitants, of which 8 000 live in informal settlements and 17 000 in the formal section.

Thudinyane, while addressing a media briefing on Monday, said the town’s municipality has a record of 5 000 account holders out of the 17 000 with only a limited number who settle their municipal bills.

“The residents who are located in the informal settlements do not contribute to the council revenue as they are not billed for the municipal services provided, a situation which contributes to the municipality’s financial unsustainability,” Thudinyane said.

He said the town has fewer people who are able to pay for their municipal bills with 43% youth unemployment, constant job losses and a fair number of residential erven owned by pensioners.

Measures

“The accumulating debts result in the lack of service provision and disconnection of services,” Thudinyane said.

In effort to combat debt accumulation, the Gobabis municipality listed a number of measures to yield possible solutions and increase municipality revenue. This include billing informal settlement residents, the introduction of the Flexible Land Tenure System (FLTS) - a concept to provide affordable security of tenure to inhabitants in informal settlements.

Other measures which are currently at work, include the transfer of the Road Camp area to municipality. This will enable the municipality to charge residents for municipal services.

Road Camp is a residential area that was set up by the ministry of works and transport to accommodate construction workers during the construction of the Trans Kalahari Highway. It is not a municipal area and therefore residents do not hold municipal accounts. - Nampa