The Tulipamwe Savings Group has demanded that the Walvis Bay Municipality allocate land to its members at portion 10 of Farm 37 on the outskirts of the town.
The group secretary, Lidker Moses, says the council has allocated unserviced land at Portion 12 to them, while the group prefers to reside at Portion 10, where there are services.
Moses says members have been demanding land at Farm 37 since 2016.
The regional leadership in 2015 identified Farm 37, a few kilometres east of the harbour town, as a solution to the land and housing backlog.
In July 2023, the council transferred plots to the first 50 beneficiaries, and only one family has set up a structure on their plot thus far.
"As we speak now, the municipality is saying they don't have enough money for them to service the land, and portion 10 as it is, where 50 beneficiaries are, has been serviced; there are toilet facilities and water provision. As for our portion 12, we don't know when this will be done. That's why all we want is to be placed in portions 10 and 11, and this should be done before the election."
Walvis Bay Deputy Mayor Sara Mutondoka says the relocation of residents to Farm 37 is planned in stages.
Mutondoka explained that when the new leadership took over, there were different housing lists provided to the council, and it became a challenge to allocate plots.
"We embarked upon a different exercise of getting the list of people living in the backyard shacks because those are, we believe, the people that are really most likely to fall into that category of ultra-low income. And this is how this list came about—filling up these extensions, specifically 10 and 11. We are looking at this new list that was registered this year, and this list was not discriminatory in the way as to who was born here or who came when. As long as you lived in a backyard structure, you formed part of that list, and that is the list we are considering for the relocation to those two extensions. For the other extensions that are coming up, we are then looking at everyone regardless of their income."
Several savings groups have applied for land at Farm 37.
A group of fishermen and the Walvis Bay Backyard Tenants Group have already been allocated unserviced portions of land.