Adjustments in budget for Municipality 2015/2016 general valuations

A general valuation exercise that requires each rateable property to be inspected and valued has begun. The Municipal Council of Windhoek stated that this practice would need approximately 15 months to complete. It has been proposed that in order for the Valuation Services Division to do the valuation of all the rateable properties, an additional N$ 3,572,500 to the initial N$ 800,000 will be needed to complete the practice for the 2015/2016 Financial Year.

The general valuation is a process whereby all rateable properties in the municipal area of Windhoek are revalued to determine a new tax base. The process involves the collection of data on each and every property and the analysis of the data to arrive at valuations to be used for rating purposes for the next five years. The Valuation Service Division, previously understaffed, will now be aided with at least 25 private valuers and data collectors. As they have in previous years, the Council will enlist the services of graduates and students from the Polytechnic of Namibia who are doing a course in Property Valuation. An amount of N$100,000 has been budgeted to have the building costs per square metre estimated by a quantity surveyor. With a total of 875 properties to be valuated, N$ 1,844,500 will go towards the outsourcing of certain areas of the city to the private valuers. The areas to be outsourced are various value farms (370 properties), Brakwater (300 properties), Nubuamis (150 properties), Dobra (20 properties) and Emmarentia (35 properties). It is estimated that the data collectors will cost N$ 2,178,000 in terms of salaries and wages for the duration of 11 months (April 2015 to January 2016). For the 2014/2015 Financial Year, an amount of N$200,000 was made available for overtime expenses but it has been estimated that an amount of N$ 350,000 will be required to cover overtime for 2015/2016. When valuations are done they will be put before the Valuation Court for approval. Once the valuations are approved by the valuation court they will remain in force until the next general valuation. Changes to the valuation roll are only effected through interim valuations, and only if there are alterations to any property.