By Adolf Kaure.
The Swakopmund Municipal Council, during its latest Monthly Agenda Meeting, approved to write off bad debt owed to them by senior citizens amounting to about N$6,437,000.
By 31 August 2023, there were 2253 active service accounts under the senior citizens category, with over N$9 Million owed to them.
Chairperson of the Swakopmund Municipal Council’s Management Committee, Blasius Goraseb, said “Council approves the writing off of irrecoverable debts as provided for in Council’s Bad Debt Policy.”
“The opportunity to write off the debts of the senior citizens will only be done once and [become] effective a day after the council resolution has been passed.”
“Once the debt has been written off, no more debt should be accrued again,” he said.
Senior citizens at Swakopmund with outstanding service accounts have been invited to submit Police Declarations stating their reasons and circumstances leading to the accumulated debts of their service accounts.
“Council will adopt a due diligence approach and consider the merit of each case,” he said.
The Council further resolved that the General Manager of Finance should ensure that the senior citizens whose debts were already written off once should not be part of the current list.
During 2016, the Swakopmund Municipal Council settled the outstanding debts of senior citizens through financial assistance from a donor. From the submissions it is evident that most of the pensioners finding themselves in debt receive a government pension.
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