Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Mayor of the City of Windhoek (CoW), Job Amupanda, has announced a number of plans to remedy the swelling informal settlements in the Capital, amongst them registering a 100% municipality owned company, Nova Actus Holdings (Pty) Ltd, to deal with land and housing development.
Speaking at a press briefing today at the municipality, Amupanda stated that the creation of the company will deal with bureaucracy and address the need for a municipal-owned company to resolve the issues of those who have been on land and housing allocation lists for extended periods of time.
While giving the outcomes of a workshop on land and housing held on Monday, 30 August 2021 to Friday, 3 September 2021, Amupanda also explained that the leadership of the CoW convened with the aim to devise strategies on how to provide sufficient land and housing opportunities to their people and simultaneously contain informal urban expansion.
The mayor stated that Nova Actus holdings was created from a council resolution and will deal with issues of governance and bureaucracy that culminates in things taking long.
“The ideas are there, but things take too long. When we look at archives you see policies articulated back in 2015, but there is no implementation. A 100% owned CoW company called Nova Actus holding has been established. Over the coming weeks it should be registered. Under this holding there should be a subsidiary that deals with land and housing. We want to get rid of the middle man and have one company that deals with big construction and big servicing projects,” Amupanda stated.
With regard to funding, Amupanda said that within a period of six months, a subsidiary under Nova Actus Holdings will submit a funding proposal to council for consideration inclusive of insurance for low-cost housing.
“We have written a letter to the president. Currently, CoW books are confusing to a number of people. The balance sheet shows that our liabilities are at N$2.7 billion and assets are at N$20 billion. This is a happy balance, however, there are issues of liquidities. On our books there is a N$700 million historic debt,” the mayor explained.
“We wanted to engage the president on debt swap and to write off this historical debt, as well as interest. In exchange for writing off this debt swap, CoW can perhaps give land to people on government’s behalf,” Amupanda said. Other outcomes of the workshop also include the establishment of a task force which will control the influx of people into Windhoek.
Amupanda said that the task team on the urbanisation management will review current laws and policies and recommend possible reforms and provide input to the development of a Regional and National Urbanisation Strategy or Policy, inclusive of a fixed funding formula to local authorities.
With regard to land matters and the waiting list, Amupanda stated that council resolved the adoption and publication of a reviewed waiting list on a first-come-first-serve basis and consolidate all lists into a single land application waiting list called the ‘City of Windhoek Waiting List’.
Amupanda further stated that there is a need to speed up housing and land servicing projects. “We never get things done. This is our biggest weakness. We need to be serious about project management and thus we will establish a project management team which has an end to end approach,” Amupanda said.
To show their commitment, Amupanda said that Council set aside N$22 million to start with a Council-funded affordable housing project which will showcase the type of Windhoek they want – a new Windhoek with more dignified living space.
The project will start this year in Goreangab Extension 4 on a small scale. The full rollout of the project will be at a piece of land measuring 24 hectares in Cimbebasia.
