•  December 2000February 2001 Local News Headlines

Monday, February 26, 2001 - Web posted at 6:15:00 AM GMT

Families beg to differ with NHE
CHRISTOF MALETSKY

SOME families evicted by the National Housing Enterprise (NHE) from Katutura's Goreangab area last week claim they moved to make way for development and not because they owe money to the parastatal.

Those approached by The Namibian on Friday charged that the NHE told them the land belonged to a community organisation called Tuhangana and was needed to build a clinic and school, a charged denied by the NHE.

They said they were not aware that they had to pay for the land and found it "funny" that the NHE had announced that they were being evicted.

Annie Henge, who had lived on her Goreangab plot for eight years, said she had only paid water because that was in the agreement she had signed.

According to Henge, they were temporarily resettled at the Goreangab site and were told they would be moved to Okuryangava once land was available."

"How do you think we will be able to pay for an erf [plot of land] which will cost us N$60 and buy water at a price of around N$30, if they claim we could not even pay N$40 for an erf of an average subsidised price of N$3 000," Henge asked.

Another women, a member of a family of four evicted and resettled at Okuryangava on Friday, said they had in the past approached the NHE for erven but were told their salaries were too low."

"Why did they not tell us then that the land we were on was actually ours and that we were supposed to pay for it?

In any case we knew that we had to move on and that is why we approached them for land," she said.

NHE spokesperson Jonathan Sam said people knew why they were being evicted.

He said the housing parastatal had obtained orders from the court and residents had been informed about the orders before they agreed to move.

The NHE plans to evict 261 loan defaulters who are in arrears on their housing loans to the tune of more than N$2,5 million.

The low cost housing provider now intends to build houses on the plots which will be sold to other interested parties on the waiting list.

Sam said the NHE had obtained more than 50 eviction orders which would be executed on a four-a-day basis, while the rest of the defaulters would be evicted once more eviction orders were obtained.

Those being evicted are being resettled at Plot 2326 in Okuryangava where they can lease Municipal land at a maximum fee of N$60 a month.

The families were originally moved to Goreangab from the Katutura Single Quarters in 1992.

The NHE offered these families loans at low interest rates to enable them to buy plots in Okuryangava and in Goreangab and Greenwell Matongo in the wider Katutura area.