By Joe-Cintha Garises
OKAHANDJA, 17 May 2022 – Residents at the Okahandja Home Base Cared building fear that they will be evicted without notice by the municipality.
“Some of us have been living here for more than five years and don’t know where to go if we were to be evicted,” one tenant said on Tuesday.
Some residents say “conditions are being made unbearable for us the tenants of the building because water and electricity are being cut off by the municipality and Cenored”.
The building is under a lease agreement between the municipality and two residents of the town.
“This was an abandoned building for which I Cathleen Uri-Khos (chairperson) and partner signed a lease agreement with the municipality,” she said.
She stated that the agreement was signed in 2006 there was no expiry date for the lease. She added that they were the ones that renovated the building and brought water and electricity to the premises and have the receipts to prove it.
For unknown reasons the water meter has been disconnected and electricity cut off by Cenored. She claims that they don’t owe Cenored and the municipality anything. “I think this is a personal matter that they have against me. That’s why they are doing it to me but I’m not living at that building,I have my own house,” she said when contacted for comment on the matter.
An Okahandja town councillor, Bethuel Tjaveondja, confirmed that he is aware of the situation. He stated further that the municipality and the signatories to the lease should come to an agreement so that the tenants should not suffer.
“I am willing to be part of the meeting to come up with a solution for the tenants because I don’t want them to be homeless as some are single mothers,” he said.
He said that this Home Based Care building looks like a milking cow to certain people, and also that the municipality has the right to repossess the building.
He confirmed that no one has been evicted, but if an eviction has to take place tenants will be given notice and a grace period to stay.
The town’s CEO was not in his office when called for comments on the ongoing matter. – Namibia Daily News
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