City candidates sell their vision

The five shortlisted candidates last week outlined their vision for transforming the City of Windhoek, marking the first time interviews for the position were held publicly.
Speaking first, entrepreneur Charmill Zamuee said she would work to ensure the City’s financials would get a clean bill of health from its auditors.
Zamuee had noted that the City had struggled to get unqualified audits, something she would set out to change straight away.
“The City has so far never had a clean audit in terms of financial sustainability, it is something that is guided by budgets so if you do not honour the budget, if you do not comply with processes, it actually brings problems so my plan to be able to achieve this is through putting structures in place,” said Zamuee noting the need for the City to improve its record-keeping.
“My plan of action is to have a clean audit within the next two to three years,” Zamuee said.

Debt collection

Otjiwarongo municipality CEO Moses Mtyayi said he would prioritise debt collection.
The City is owed N$1 billion by residents.
Mtyayi proposed getting deduction codes from the government to ensure that it could deduct outstanding money from the salaries of civil servants.
Mtyayi said the municipality would have to be intentional in its approach to recover its debt.
“If you are in arrears, whether you like it or not, you will have to enter into a compulsory debit order with the City because your behaviour affects the way we do business,” Mtyayi said.

Land delivery

Namwater executive Eino Mvula said he would prioritise land delivery if he was appointed as CEO.
“On the issue of access to land, given the fact that we have excess land that is within the boundaries of the City, we need to make use of the legal instruments that exist, for example the Constitution makes provision for the expropriation of land, obviously just compensation, so that that land can be developed, by the City itself and not by private developers so that our people can be given land on a cost-recovery basis,” Mvula said.
Mvula also raised the need to diversify the City’s revenue streams.
“On the revenue side of the equation, we need to diversify our resources, we leverage the assets that we have to generate revenue for the City,” Mvula said.

Consultation

Joyce Mukubi, deputy executive director in the ministry of works, said she would engage openly with the City’s stakeholders within her first 100 days to get a sense of what the City needed most.
“I would assess the current situation and analyse the needs of the City. I would also engage in expansive consultation with all stakeholders and, most importantly the residents of the City,” Mukubi said.

Containing debt

Roads Authority CEO Conrad Lutombi also spoke of the need to rein in the City’s debt.
“We need to contain expenditure; we need to have an effective debt collection to recover all debt. We need to be very strict in terms of the measures we put to deal with defaulters. If people don’t pay, mechanisms must be put in place so that we cut the services.”