Churches scramble for city land

WITH the lifting of a moratorium on the sale of land to churches in 2010, some churches are now on a collision course with the Windhoek municipality for either having failed to develop their plots or having defaulted on their instalments.

Other churches that have proliferated at an unprecedented pace in Windhoek, have pounced on the opportunity to snatch up the land currently in dispute. One such church is the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth in the Goreangab area or Kimbanguist Church in Namibia led by Pastor Simon Kimbangu.Council documents indicate that the church was sold erf 1661 in 2000 at a subsidised price of nearly N$73 000, but it could not afford the instalments and fell into arrears. The land transaction was cancelled in 2003 and the church offered to buy the land again but could not meet the new requirements. The municipality’s policy on the sale of land to churches at the time required churches to provide a list of a minimum of 250 adult members and copies of six months’ financial statements. When the plot became available for sale again, another church organisation called Christ Disciples Fellowship offered to buy the land in 2006 at a price of about N$114 000. The Christ Disciples Fellowship also failed to honour the conditions of the sale agreement, leading to its application meeting the same fate as that of Kimbanguist Church. When the Kimbanguist Church was sold the land in 2000 it started with what the City Council called an ‘illegal construction’ on the plot because it did not submit building plans to the municipality. There are still incomplete steel and brick structures on the property.’It means that should the council decide to sell this property to another applicant the City would have to break down the structures on its own cost,’ the council’s management committee indicated last year.In July last year another church, Forward in Faith International Ministries in Namibia, offered to buy the plot and according to the council, the church has submitted the required documents to qualify for a subsidised price.A month after Forward in Faith showed interest in the plot, the Kimbanguist Church reapplied in August last year to be given another chance to buy the plot, leaving the council with a dilemma. The council’s management committee decided at its last meeting of 2011 to give the Kimbanguist Church another chance to buy the plot at an escalated price of nearly N$183 000.This time the church would be given conditions that if they fail to purchase the plot within 30 days of the council resolution, the property would be put up for sale and the church would be responsible for the demolition of the illegal structures there. While three churches battled to acquire plot 1661 in Goreangab, another church in Wanaheda, Blessed Hope Fellowship International, is on the verge of losing erf 2468 which it bought for nearly N$160 000 in 2001, and paid in full. The church failed to develop the plot within the specified period of five years.In 2009 the City Council rejected a move by the church to sell the unimproved plot to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, paving the way for the council to exercise its right over the land. The church pleaded with the municipality to be given another two years to build, since building plans had been submitted and a foundation had been dug. The management committee recommended to the City Council that the reinstatement of the sale to Blessed Hope be rejected and that the church be refunded about N130 000, which is 80% of what the church had paid in 2001.The committee recommended that erf 2468 be sold to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at subsidised price of N$414 000.

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