City knocks on ministry’s door for unsettled bills

Roger Gertze, strategic executive of finance at the City of Windhoek (CoW) this week confirmed that the City of Windhoek has submitted the list of arrears of all government institutions to the Ministry of Finance for consideration and payment.
“The letter, requesting assistance with the list, was submitted to the Ministry of Finance. The letter with the list was delivered at the Ministry on 27 January 2012,” he said.
According to Gertze, so far, no formal response has been received from the ministry.
“Our expectation is that they should liaise with the relevant ministries and encourage them to pay,” he said.
The move to submit the arrears list forms part of efforts by the City of Windhoek to recover finances and collect funds owed to the municipality for services rendered to Windhoek residents, the business community, government institutions and parastatals.
The total debt owed to the City as at 31 December 2011 stands at N$330 million.
“Of this amount, N$51 192 743 is owed by the government and parastatals, residents owe an amount of N$119 151 038 and businesses an amount of N$30 044 000,” said Gertze.
This made it hard for the City to operate and provide municipal services to residents.
In the meantime, Gertze said that their efforts has yielded positive results and that the municipality has received a positive response from many ministries.
He, however, could not divulge any figures at this stage as the municipality is busy with month end procedures.
“All I can say is that we have received good cooperation from most of the ministries that were in arrears,” Gertze added.