Otjozondjupa Region Youth Activist,Terry Ujamba, in the following insert, explains why the budget was a good one.

Otjozondjupa Governor James Uerikua says the regional council agrees to the writing off of historic water debts in certain cases.

Uerikua was speaking at a meeting with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resources and Community Development, which is currently hosting a hearing on historic write-offs of water and electricity debts.

Uerikua says local authorities with access to natural water sources must strengthen themselves to provide water to their communities.

Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) has cleared all statutory debts, amounting to over N$93 million, including historical tax payments owed to the Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRa).

NWR announced its debt-free milestone in a media statement after settling all its outstanding long-term and statutory debts successfully, some of which date back to its foundation.

These debts included financial obligations to both development financial institutions and commercial funding organisations, posing a long-standing financial challenge for the company.

Keetmanshoop Town Council is embarking on an aggressive campaign to recover outstanding municipal water debt, running into millions of dollars.

Residents, government institutions, and businesses owe the town council a combined total of N$212 million in unpaid water bills.

Keetmanshoop acting CEO Lee Mwembe revealed that residents have racked up water bills of N$127 million, while government institutions and businesses owe N$85 million.

Figures also show that, of the more than N$9,000 active customers, only N$2,257 are currently paying their monthly water bills.

Residents of the ||Kharas Region have thrown their support behind the motion on the writing-off of water and electricity debts that local authorities owe bulk suppliers, NamWater and NamPower.

They shared their sentiments at the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Resources and Community Development public hearing at Keetmanshoop.
 
Defaulters owe NamWater N$1.7 billion, while the debt owed to NamPower stands at N$1.5 billion.

Figures revealed that local authorities are the biggest defaulters.

The Insitute for Public Policy Research has expressed concern over the country's high level of public debts and called for cautious borrowing.

In its economic review for the last quarter of last year, the IPPR says the high level of borrowing has put the government in a foreseen situation leading such as rising interest rates and slow economic growth.

Quoting statistics from the Bank of Namibia and other sources, the IPPR says Namibia's total public debts outstanding value stands at 135-comma-five billion dollars.

The Leader of the Landless People's Movement, LPM, Bernadus Swartbooi, has called for the speedy implementation of a rescue plan, such as the writing off of debts to address the high electricity tariffs.

A motion requesting NamPower and NamWater to write off local authorities' debts was tabled by the LPM.

In his contribution, Swartbooi says the current economic hardship is making it difficult for local authorities to settle their debts with the entities.