Elizabeth Hiyolwa
NKURENKURU – The Kavango West region is still beset by serious development challenges such as poor roads, inadequate water and electricity supply and cellular network problems.
Governor Sirkka Ausiku outlined these challenges during the state of the region address at Nkurenkuru last week.
“Development in the region is still hampered by challenges such as poor road infrastructure network like feeder roads in the inland, inadequate water infrastructure, inadequate rural electrification, and poor mobile communication networks in most parts of the region,” she said.
Ausiku also expressed the lack of national documents contributes to the poverty levels in the region. “Many of our people still do not have the required national documents to access the available social grants and my call is for the redoubling of efforts in this fundamental area,” she noted.
During the address, it was also established that there is a backlog in the drilling of boreholes. This is based on the regional statistics, which indicated that 134 villages out of 405 villages are without water provision.
“This is an indication that we still need to do more in terms of water provision to our communities,” she added. The regional governor further said the lack of budget for compensation purposes which is very critical to fast-track land delivery in town places a burden on Nkurenkuru Town Council in carrying out their duty effectively regarding land delivery.
Ausiku also expressed her resentment towards the issue of educational facilities being coupled with a high rate of teenage pregnancies and school dropout and called upon the line ministry to get on deck in addressing the issue.
“I am also appealing to the ministry to strengthen their programmes addressing teenage pregnancies in schools by involving all stakeholders including parents and community members,” she stated.
Other issues raised at the address include rural electrification, as the region still has a backlog of 64 schools and many villages that still need to be connected to the national grid.
Furthermore, the region also raised concern over the 59.3% of the population which still travel six kilometres on average to the nearest clinic. The allocation of fishing rights was another contentious issue raised during the address, as only a mere 0.4% of the fishing rights were allocated to the region’s inhabitants.
The other issue raised by the governor is that of students’ accommodation as there is a need for affordable accommodation for students. She thus appealed to the business communities to take up this as a business opportunity and called on universities to consider building students accommodation.