Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The City of Windhoek’s (CoW) debt relief initiative for pensioners has not yet resulted in the promised debt write-off.
Shaun Gariseb, an activist representing the Katutura Residents Committee (KRC), criticised the implementation of the programme.
“They asked the pensioners to apply for debt write-offs, which they started to do in March. They wrote off the debts and people got into the same debt again. In some instances, they reconnected the water, creating the same problem all over and putting people into the same debt again,” said Gariseb.
Gariseb pointed out that the CoW set conditions requiring residents to pay off their current amount for three months after the announcement of the write-off.
“What happened is that they did not listen to what we were saying. They told people to apply for the write-off, but they can’t write off the debts because the households don’t have water meters yet. For as long as they don’t have the meters, they can’t start writing them off. Now they are telling people to constantly keep paying that agreed amount,” he said.
He further claims that the KRC’s pressure led to the adoption of the debt write-off initiative.
“The reality is that they just adopted this debt write-off because we gave them pressure,” Gariseb stated.
Earlier this year, the city council announced the complete write-off of all municipal debt and accrued interest for pensioners aged 60 and above, during an engagement between the KRC and the CoW.
The CoW launched the debt relief initiative specifically to aid elderly residents.
The programme aimed to cancel debts totalling N$524 million, with N$223 million allocated for the pensioners’ debts across approximately 26 000 municipal accounts.
The figure also encompasses debts from non-pensioners, business interests, informal leases, and outstanding ambulance service payments.
Questions sent to the CoW were not responded to by the time of publishing this article.
