WINDHOEK – Seventy public toilets will be built in Windhoek’s four informal settlements at a cost of N$1.2 million this year to improve sanitation and fight the outbreak of Hepatitis E.
This was confirmed by Khomas regional council chairperson, Rachel Jacob.
The informal settlements earmarked for these facilities are in Moses Garoeb, Khomasdal, Tobias Hainyeko and Samora Machel constituencies.
“This is because the four constituencies have the informal settlement that are considered hotbeds of the Hepatitis E outbreak,” Jacob said last week during the official opening of the regional council for the calendar year. New Era reported in December last year that the Khomas Region topped the list with 2771 cases of Hepatitis E.
Jacob said the regional council budgeted N$7.2 million in the 2018/2019 financial year of which N$6 million will be transferred to the City of Windhoek for the provision of water and sanitation in the informal settlements, while N$1.2 million is being used to construct 70 toilets in the four constituencies.
Jacob also said during the current 2018/2019 financial year, the regional council received N$192 000 through the Harambee prosperity plan to improve rural sanitation.
She explained that the regional council supplemented this amount with N$1 million of its own funds to improve sanitation in Windhoek rural.
“We managed to build 67 toilets through this budget at Ongombo West, Aroevlei, Farm Arab, Farm Garib and Baungartsbrunn,” she reported.
Furthermore, under the land and resettlement programme in the region, Jacob said the land regional office carried out an assessment of households and farming infrastructures at Farm Versailles, a government resettlement farm in Windhoek rural. She said the assessment found that although 86 households were resettled on the farm, it has now become a catchment area for evicted farmworkers in Windhoek rural constituency, which resulted in illegal activities such as subleasing, land invasion, poaching and vandalism to properties, as well as alcohol and drug abuse on the farm. Jacob stated that an assessment report with recommendations was produced, which will give stakeholders the best strategies in solving the challenges at the farm.