Staff Reporter
THE City of Windhoek (CoW) has incurred a loss of N$480 million for the previous financial year, ending June 2021, which brings its cumulative losses to N$3,2 billion for the last ten years.
This was revealed by CoW councillor, Jürgen Hecht, on Monday during a press briefing, where he explained that the situation “has taken a toll on the solvency of Windhoek”.
“The solvency of Windhoek is catastrophic. It is of alarming proportions,” he said.
To remedy the situation, Hecht explained, CoW has considered exchanging undeveloped land with the government for payment. He said that negotiations on this matter have started, but he is uncertain whether a fruitful conclusion will come about.
Moreover, Hecht added, even if the exchange takes places, it will actually be “very bad” for CoW as the virgin land is one of its biggest assets.
“It will actually be very bad because we, as City of Windhoek, would then be sacrificing our golden egg. We would be selling one of our biggest assets,” he explained.
He also revealed that CoW’s resources have gone down by N$195 million, according the Draft Financials for 2021. This, Hecht said, puts tremendous pressure of CoW’s current cash flow, especially because it’s currently surviving on a N$200 million overdraft facility to manage day-to-day operations. He added that CoW is already nearing the overdraft limit, which is its only lifeline.
While CoW has monthly inflows varying between N$350 million to N$450 million, Hecht explained, it also has three big fixed costs and creditors – namely NamWater, NamPower and CoW salaries – that amount to about N$300 million. He said that CoW uses the remaining N$100 million to N$150 million to finance operating expenditures and bigger capital projects – which leaves little room to manoeuvre.
All of this, he revealed, is worsened by the fact that as of March 2022, CoW’s outstanding debtors have amounted to N$1,2 billion.
“City of Windhoek has been stuck in this cash flow dilemma for the past five, six years and no remedy has been found, unfortunately, over the past few years to fix this,” Hecht added.
