Erongo Region governor Cleophas Mutjavikua said Wlozkasbaken and the court case around it remain a serious bottleneck in the process of development.
“The settlement is in and out of courts, which hampers any development program of the regional council. While the regional council sees a prestige suburb development, others see that there must be a bottleneck,” said Mutjavikua at his 'state of the region' address on Friday.
Since the year 2000, the regional council and regional government ministry want to expand and develop the holiday settlement about 35 kilometres north of Swakopmund by allocating additional plots of land for new houses to be built there.
The Wlotzkasbaken Home Owners' Association agreed to accept a proposed layout but on conditions to which the regional council did not agree. This led to a series of legal actions which saw the parties in and out of courts for several years. To date, the association has had rulings in its favour which led to appeals by the regional council.
Former chief regional officer (CRO) of Erongo, Linus Garoëb, who is now representing the Minister of Regional and Local Government and Housing and Rural Development at the Omaruru Municipality, told Mutjavikua on Friday during a questions and answers opportunity, that he was very concerned about the long time it was taking to resolve the Wlotzkasbaken issue. “The 'bosberaad' over Wlotzkas has been through three governors, and three CROs and yet when you do some research, it is apparent that there are no formerly disadvantaged people living in Wlotzkas. Hakahana is one of the black spots in Omaruru; DRC is the black spot in Swakopmund; but Wlotzkas is a white spot while the others are black spots. How is the governor going to address the issue that we can send or station the previously disadvantaged black or previously disadvantaged white people there to also get erven at Wlotzkas as soon as possible?” said Garoëb.
Mutjavikua called Garoëb's question “tough” because he is talking of “black and white spots”.
“We would like to come to the table with the stakeholders and also hear from them what they want. The obvious fact that we all know, in Namibia, since Independence, there will never be a suburb that will be there for some people and not for others. Even in the DRC you will find white residents. There is no place where one will say this is only for white and this is only for black.
But since the matter is sub judice, we will like to meet the stakeholders who are mature Namibian people. They are Namibian, they were born here and they have no interest anywhere else,” answered Mutjavikua.
He maintained that the council has plans to develop the service erven “for all the Namibian people to benefit”.
“However, the problem we are having is that the matter remains in court and no investor wants to put their money in a matter which is still involved in legal action,” he said.
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