THE Rehoboth Town Council stopped the payment of housing allowances to its staff this month because of discrepancies in the payment of the allowance.

Council staff complained to The Namibian last week that the allowance to those who rent accommodation was discontinued without even informing the employees.

"We do not know why they did so ... My question is, where is the money going to," an angry council worker said.

The municipality's CEO, Theo Jankowski, on Thursday said that the finance and human resources departments had detected that some employees were erroneously paid out housing allowances, and that the allowance was stopped for this month to rectify these errors.

The local government ministry some time ago directed that employees who own houses may receive 30 percent of their basic salary as a housing allowance, while those who rent accommodation may receive 15 percent.

Jankowski said among the latter group, some received a 23 percent housing allowance.

He said the council had decided that the corrections would not be made retroactively, hence the decision to withhold the erroneously calculated housing allowances.