Informal settlements drain Okahandja, says CEO

The informal settlements in Okahandja do not pay for the majority of services provided by the municipality, which hampers the town’s development.These residents are not paying for the rates and taxes in the town, the council’s chief executive officer, Martha Mutilifa, told Nampa.‘”The town is swamped by informal settlements and people who are expecting full services from the council which is getting nothing from them,” said Mutilifa.The council requested government for permission to acquire funding from outside in October last year to start with the development or construction of formal structures for people who already have erven, but do not have the means to develop them.If these residents were provided with the formal structures, the municipality would be able to get funds for the services provided to those residents, Mutilifa said.“We owe NamWater N$7 million and we do not know how we are going make that money to pay them - given the fact that Okahandja does not have the buying power and there is unemployment countrywide, which is even worse here, but every day we have to give full services,” Mutilifa explained.UnemploymentShe added that the little funds they get from residents have to be shared with service providers.Mutilifa stressed that as a council, they are trying to collect money from the services provided by the municipality, but people do not have jobs to be able to pay for these services.“The other thing we did to relieve people from having outstanding debts is that we asked the ministry to fund us or give us funding to acquire pre-paid water meters.“We bought 500 water meters which we gave to the community,” added Mutilifa.She, however, expressed concern over the vandalism of these water meters by some community members. - Nampa

Informal settlements drain Okahandja, says CEO

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