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Katutura residents camp at municipal offices for land

Joshua Amukugo, spokesperson for The City of Windhoek telling the public not to overnight at their offices in Katutura to register for land because it is an on going, non-ending, no-due-date process. (Photograph by Mandisa Rasmeni)

The City of Windhoek announced this week that they are experiencing a flood of applications for land particularly at their Katutura offices since the government’s announcement on the Massive Urban Land Servicing Project with the ambitious aim of servicing 200,000 plots country wide. The residents of Katutura are camping and overnighting at the municipal offices just to be the first in line to submit applications when the offices open every morning.

The clustering of hopeful campers has created a set of new problems notably traffic congestion and unhygienic practices in the immediate vicinity. Every day this week, several hundred people queued in front of the municipal offices.
Joshua Amukugo, spokesperson of The City said that before 13 August 2015, the normal situation of the registration process has always been that an average of 10 people were registered per day. “But since the 13th a high number of people have been converging at the building and the situation has been cumbersome which is affecting a number of services,” said Amukugo.
He added that a chaotic situation always erupts and constant police presence is required while other duties and services are disrupted or neglected by this chaos. “Therefore we have decided that registration days will only be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 8:00 until 11:30, adding that this programme does not have a due date.
The City has calculated that in June 2015 approximately 100 applications were received, in July approximately100 applications and in August approximately 250 applications. The City has also revealed that some people who registered before this programme are re-registering which is not necessary. Amukugo assured the earlier applicants that the municipality has their names in its database, “thus people who are already registered should not come to register again.”
Re-iterating the process, the City stated new applicants must submit a copy of their ID, proof of Namibian citizenship, a copy of their payslip or a police statement in the case of self-employed. For the latter, an estimate of income is required.
A minimum monthly income of N$500 is required and the maximum must not exceed N$8000. If married, the municipality also requires a copy of the spouse’s ID, the payslip and the marriage certificate.
People who are existing home owners or previous home owners do not qualify. This will be verified at the time of allocation.
“We therefore would like to once again inform the public that there is no need to queue up or overnight at our offices to register, because this is an on-going, non-ending, no due date process and therefore there is no need to come in masses,” concluded Amukugo.

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