Maria David
THE Ministry of Works and Transport has been urged to speed up the implementation of the Alienation Scheme to sell their old houses at market-related prices.
The Alienation Scheme is aimed at helping to reduce the financial burden of maintaining these old properties.
Minister of Works John Mutorwa said the implementation process for the scheme is very slow as some people are still not given offers and only a few received their offer letters to be able to buy those houses.
These properties are mainly in the northern business town of Oshakati, Ondangwa, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Khorixas, Ruacana, Rundu, Rehoboth, Mariental, Okakarara, Lüderitz, Keetmanshop and Tsumeb, as well as Katurura and Khomasdal in Windhoek.
Mutorwa stated that the scheme has been running since 1998 when N$207 798 467.98 was raised through the sale of 1 401 houses.
The Khomas Region sold the most houses amounting to N$135 873 990.02 from 609 houses, followed by Oshana with N$19 952 894.15 from 257 houses, and Erongo with N$84 636 140.36 from 39 houses.
Mutorwa explained that the decision was made in 1998 to benefit civil servants who lived in those houses to buy it at a reasonable price through government.
“Government introduced the scheme to assist civil servants as not everyone could afford it through the market,” he said.
Mutorwa stated that the money is then given to the Ministry of Finance, and used to construct houses and flats for uniform forces, particularly the police force.
However, government now wants to ensure that those who now have to buy the house can do so at market-related prices, but some challenges were met along the way.
“Those that didn’t get any offer back then are not happy, claiming it was never their fault that they did get their offer letters some 29 years ago,” he said.
Mutorwa stated that the formula of selling the houses is believed to be not profitable currently, as it was intended to benefit civil servants and not about making money.
This prompted government to reconsider their decision to now implement the scheme more effectively.
Government is said to own 7 920 houses and 712 units of flats countrywide.
