Swakop finances a shining example

THE finances of the Swakopmund municipality were not only in good order, but also showed a healthy profit of N$29,5 million for the financial year that ended on June 30 2008, the Auditor General’s Office says.

This makes Swakopmund a shining example among Namibia’s towns, villages and settlements, most of which are hopelessly indebted and not making any profit.Of the N$29,5 million profit, an amount of N$3,4 million was paid into several municipal development funds, according to the latest Auditor General’s report, which was tabled in Parliament last week. Swakopmund had N$175,2 million invested at commercial banks in June last year, which had accumulated N$16 million in interest. Total revenue earned from municipal services, including tourism, water sales and electricity income from the Erongo Regional Electricity Distributor (RED) came to N$118,4 million against N$114,9 million expenditure, leaving a net surplus of N$3,4 million.Income from renting out the municipal holiday bungalows came to N$8,1 million. Auditor General Junias Kandjeke however criticised the town’s high water distribution losses of 22,4 per cent, up from 17,1 per cent the previous year.The Swakopmund municipality bought 3,5 million cubic metres of water from NamWater during the review period and sold 2,7 million cubic metres, leaving a high distribution loss of nearly one million cubic metres.’The distribution loss on water is abnormally high and the Swakopmund Town Council should investigate these losses and implement procedures to reduce them,’ the Auditor General recommended.According to the AG’s report on Government accounts for the 2006-07 financial year, which was published recently, Namibia has 49 towns, villages and settlements with a municipal administrative structure. They jointly received N$191,3 million in loans, including Swakopmund, which is repaying a loan of N$13,9 million. While some of the towns, villages and settlements are repaying loans or at least try to keep up with interest payments, the Windhoek municipality owed N$9,6 million in outstanding interest, while Lüderitz still owed N$18,8 million by March 2007. The village of Aranos had an outstanding loan balance of N$1,2 million and was N$285 335 in arrears with repayments. The total backlog on loan repayments for all 49 municipal administrations in the 2006-07 financial year stood at N$63,3 million on the capital portion of loans, plus N$51,3 million of arrears for accumulated interest – altogether N$114,6 million.The AG’s report for the 2008 Government accounts has not been published yet.