THE City of Windhoek has urged people with disabilities to report property developers who used their status to acquire land from the municipality, and later discarded them without any benefit from such acquisitions.
City of Windhoek councillor Hileni Ulumbu yesterday said the municipality has "noted with great concern" a trend whereby some residents with a disability were being fronted (used) in applications for land by certain property developers and individuals for their own benefit.
She added that property developers were fronting people with disabilities in applying for land "with a notion that such projects are aimed at providing employment and uplifting the living standards of people with disabilities".
"Yet, when one goes an extra mile into investigating the ownership of the companies, these people being fronted do not even appear as members of the companies they are purported to belong to," she stressed.
The municipality places typical priority on land applications for previously disadvantaged persons and people living with disabilities.
The councillor said several developers have seen this as an opportunity to use disabled people's names to bypass the municipality's waiting list "in their motives to obtain land for property development, and eventually abandon the previously disadvantaged once they have amassed their maximum profits from land and the eventual property sales".
She, therefore, urged people living with disabilities to "alert the municipality if they suspect being fronted" in land applications by property developers.
Ulumbu added that such acts by developers could amount to criminal acts, and "will be dealt with accordingly".
"The public at large and people with disabilities should be cautious not to fall victim to those with fraudulent intentions of fronting them to get their land applications through, and later abandon them after such approval has been granted. This insensitive practice by some members of our society is unacceptable, and should come to an end as a matter of urgency," she reiterated.
"Members of the public are also cautioned to refrain from engaging in criminal activities of forging documentation purporting to be supporting documents for consideration in the allocation of land as persons with disabilities," she added.
Ulumbu said the municipality would thus also ensure that internal land allocation control measures are followed to ensure that land applications being approved and those being submitted requesting approval based on the applicant being person/s with a disability, should be well-merited.
Meanwhile, the City of Windhoek's spokesperson, Lydia Amutenya, said the municipality's waiting list was such that they were still dealing with some applications dating back to 2005 and 2006.
