Hertta-Maria Amutenja
Walvis Bay Mayor Trevino Forbes said the local authority has requested the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development to extend the boundaries of the town.
Forbes revealed this yesterday while reporting on the accomplishments of his office.
According to a 1978 map, the municipal area of jurisdiction is estimated to be 1 124 square kilometres along 60 kilometres of coastline.
This includes the airport, dunes, wetlands, Kuiseb River, Rooibank in the desert, and Sandwich Harbour. It stretches up to the middle of the Swakop River at the bridge south of Swakopmund.
However, the town’s boundaries only cover an area of 17,2 square kilometres, which is encircled by sand dunes.
Additionally, he also said the office together with the Walvis Bay municipality council has also written off debts, grant amnesty and waive interest for residents and businesses.
“We saw the high debts of our elderly in Walvis Bay and saw that some of them could not pay off their debts. Together with the municipal council, we decided to write off the water debts of all elderly people in the town, gave all residents relief of interest and businesses received amnesty for their debts. We did this because we know that Covid-19 had a very serious impact on our people’s finances,” he said
In addition, he said, the mayor’s office has assisted the Topnaar community with N$120 000 for 21 students to go study in Tsumeb.
He announced that the neighbourhood of Narraville will soon have an old age home.
“Narraville has been begging for an old age home for about 20 years now. We are happy to reveal that we will be having a groundbreaking next month for the land allocated for the old age home. We have also built additional units for the Kuisebmund Old Age home,” he said.
Forbes said his office has also approved land for a N$4 billion golf estate that will be built in Walvis Bay.
The President’s Links Estate is an upmarket estate planned for Walvis Bay and will be situated on the edge of the Dorob National Park on about 148 hectares of prime land.
It is believed to be owned by Pieter Fox, a developer and owner of Fox Designs, Andrew van der Westhuizen of Van der Westhuizen Town Planning and Properties, and Wiseman Molatzi, owner of Proprietors Business Solutions CC.
Over 745 luxurious housing units, a golf course and other state-of-the-art amenities are planned for the development.
The investment of N$4 billion, will create over 2 500 temporary jobs, 1 300 permanent jobs, and also build over 700 low-cost houses for Namibians.
