If you ever wondered how much social services cost the City of Windhoek, in the 2020/21 financial year, $574 million was spent against an income of N$30.87 million.
According to figures shared by CoW’s Strategic Executive for Finance and Customer Services, Jennifer Comalie, during the 5th Windhoek Mayoral Business Forum, the City Police has emerged as one of the biggest cost drivers of the City’s social services costs, gobbling over N$310 million in the 2020/21 financial year, against an income of N$18.8 million.
“Its quite a significant cost to council costing council N$310 million per annum. Not just in crime prevention but in traffic control, playing a role in supplementing NamPol services. We get about N$18 million that we recover, so in total the City Police’s direct cost to council is about N$290 million,” she said.
“That is a cost that we obviously need to bear from somewhere from our rates and taxes. As we can’t really get from water and electricity is controlled.”
According to municipality figures presented, Fire and Emergency services emerged the second largest cost item for municipal social services, costing N$119.9 million during the period under review compared to an income of only N$3.78 million.
Public transport cost the City N$100.8 million against income of only N$5.96 million, recording a deficit of N$94.8 million.
“It’s such a needed service in our community. We need to get people to work in an affordable and safe way,” Comalie said.
Community services costs came in at N$19.7 million for the period, against an income of N$1.36 million.
Disaster management cost for the 2020/2021 financial year came in at N$23 million against an income of only N$939 346.
