By:Uakutura Kambaekua
Kunene Regional Council has pledged to mitigate the housing backlog and fast-track the water supply process, which will include a Water Treatment Plant, drilling and rehabilitation of boreholes in rural areas during the 2022/2023 financial year.
The regional council received a budget of more than N$ 74.7 million from the government for its operations for the current financial year, of which N$ 6.9 million have been diverted to developmental projects, which include the construction of low-cost houses at Okangwati and Fransfontein, flush toilets with sewerage and offsite wastewater treatment at Fransfontein and Sesfontein in order to get rid of the bucket toilet system.
The regional council’s director of planning and development services Immanuel Nefele said the council have begun with phase one of the Okangwati settlement area office construction.
“We do not have enough funds to construct the whole office at once, so we will construct it phase by phase. We want to fence up the area and initiate the first part of the office building block.”
He also said they will prioritise the construction of infrastructural services in Fransfontein. This is part of erasing the bucket toilet usage.
“We did not have much budget for that but what we have is we must construct the toilets and this project, this was completed two weeks ago,” he said.
Nafele, during an exclusive interview with the Villager also reiterated the council’s ambitions of addressing the 30 years of Okangwati water woes, noting that six boreholes were already drilled with the construction of the pipeline to commence soon. According to Nafele, the third phase of this project is estimated at more than N$ 27.6 million.
The third priority is the construction of services at Okangwati, which is the provision of potable water.
He said they have solicited N$27.6 million from the prime minister’s office to see the completion of this project.
“We expect this project to be completed in about a year’s time. Parallel to that, we want two boreholes to supply water to the people of Ohamaremba, and supply water to their livestock and their community gardens in agreement to give water to Okangwati,” he added.
The director of planning further stated that the settlement of Sesfontein will also see the completion of five boreholes at the end of the year. He said 37 low-cost houses will be constructed at Okangwati and Fransfontein with the facilitation of the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia.
”BUDGET CUTS”
According to Nafele, the region saw a cut of more than 50 per cent from its last financial year, which stood at N$ 16 million compared to N$ 6.9 million for the current financial year.
“There was a reduction in the budget. We are talking about last year, we had a budget of N$ 16 million this year,” he said.
Nafele blamed the economic recession, Covid-19, the Russia-Ukraine war and the recurrent drought on the budget cut.