NEFF blames councils for failed housing promise

ILENI NANDJATO

The Namibian Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) blame local authorities for the failure of their grandiose N$3 billion housing scheme.

The party says local councils did not give them a chance to secure the N$3 billion needed for the construction of affordable houses promised in its 2014 national election campaign.

Speaking to Namibian Sun yesterday, NEFF’s national coordinator, Kalimbo Ipumbu, said apart from the Ondangwa town council, all the local authorities rejected their proposals to acquire land through the NEFF housing project that had registered 65 000 landless people.

The Ondangwa council invited them for a presentation, but later abandoned the plan.

In 2014 NEFF told local media that the N$3 billion would be paid into a local bank before 10 December 2014 from Asian and Arabic countries.

However, the political party presented to Namibian Sun a financial statement prepared by an Oshakati-based financial consulting company in which no N$3 billion transaction was recorded.

Kalimbo said their prospective donor would not release the money to them because none of the local authorities could provide them with land despite their requests.

“The NEFF housing project money was only to be released to us once we received proof from the local authorities that we have land available to service and for the construction of houses. But we later informed them that we could not secure any land. We wrote letters to every local authority requesting for land, but they all rejected our proposals,” says Kalimbo.

Kalimbo expressed disappointment in the local authorities, saying they denied poor Namibians a golden opportunity to own houses. He said more than 65 000 people had registered for the NEFF housing project, to which they would pay only N$300 per month for their homes.

“N$3 billion is a lot of money, but since our local authorities are politically controlled by the ruling party it could not materialise. The management of the Ondangwa town council called us for a presentation where they expressed a keen interest until they reported to the council which rejected our plan.

“This was our effort to secure funds from the international community to meet our government halfway, but they rejected it,” he said.

He showed rejection letters from nine local authorities - Henties Bay, Karibib, Otjiwarongo, Swakopmund, Oranjemund, Walvis Bay, Okahao, Otavi and Grootfontein – to Namibian Sun. The majority of the local authorities said they did not have serviced land available for such a massive project.

Henties Bay, Otavi, Swakopmund, Grootfontein, Karibib and Walvis Bay indicated that they were already involved with other developers such as the National Housing Enterprises (NHE) and public-private partnerships.

Another NEFF leader, Abraham Ndumbu, said if local authorities could allocate them virgin land they could use the money to service it.

“We were not getting money to establish a new town, but to assist local authorities with land servicing and housing delivery. We could just develop the land through companies that we would contract to do the work. If local authorities are still interested we can still contact our partners,” Ndumbu said.

According to the financial statement, the party has no assets registered in its name and no income recorded since its establishment. Its account balance is N$-55 462.