NamWater blames Katima for N$2.5m bill

NamWater says the Katima Mulilo town council’s failure to invoice it timeously has led to the water utility owing the latter over N$2.5 million for municipal services rendered.

This comes after the town council accused NamWater of neglecting its bills.

NamWater's chief strategy and corporate affairs officer Kadiva Hamutumwa said the national water utility has observed a trend where local authorities fail to issue invoices to it, seemingly waiting until huge figures have accumulated before invoicing.

“This is not only with Katima Mulilo town council, but a common occurrence with the majority of local authorities. Most local authorities take as long as three years without invoicing NamWater for any services and only invoice cumulatively and at once for services. We cannot pay if there are no invoices,” she said.

Tables have turned

Katima Mulilo town council CEO Raphael Liswaniso, however, alleged that NamWater has not been forthcoming - despite repeated payment requests for more than a year.

NamWater’s accounts with the town council have since been handed over to Redforce Debt Management for collection purposes.

“You remember there was a time when we were always mentioned as being among the local authorities that owe NamWater. They would say it publicly. We tried by all means to pay them every cent we owed them, and we succeeded.

“However, now things have changed. They owe us close to N$3 million and we have tried to engage them so they pay us, but they are not coming on board. We even handed them over to Redforce, but still they are not cooperating,” he said.

Liswaniso added that it is not good that ordinary citizens who have defaulted on their municipal dues are expected to cooperate and enter into agreements with Redforce, but a big state-owned company is not coming to the party.

He further said when the town council owed NamWater, the water utility had refused to entertain suggestions of a payment plan that would allow the council to deduct its own bill from what NamWater owed it.

“We paid them off, now they should just do the same and pay us. We need to provide services to our residents and fast-track development, but due to the limited resources at our disposal, we can’t do much. Hence we expect those who owe us to come on board,” Liswaniso said.

Only one invoice

Hamutumwa confirmed that NamWater’s account in Katima Mulilo has been handed over to Redforce.

She explained that NamWater has four accounts with the local authority, but said they only received an invoice for one account.

“We confirm that the account was handed over to Redforce,” she said. “We have engaged the Katima Mulilo town council on numerous occasions to request invoices to pay, but have not received all invoices.

“We have four accounts and we only recently received invoices from them for only one of the accounts, and it was for services from 2001 to date. Despite numerous requests, they have not provided the remaining invoices,” she claimed.

“The invoices received were processed and forwarded for payment at the end April. Reconciliations are currently being done for the one account for which we have received invoices dating back to 2001. This is because, despite the town council claiming that we owe them, some transaction reports show credit balances,” she said.