John Muyamba
SATOTWA – Works minister John Mutorwa has commended the work of Roadhart Construction for the 80% completion progress of the 41km road that was supposed to be completed by December.
The company was in June handed the site of district road (DR3446), also known as Charly Cutline, which starts at Casava, some 70km to Rundu along the Rundu-Grootfointein road to open 61km of the road and put 41km of one layer of gravel for accessibility in the area.
“The contractor has already established onsite, attending to 61km of opening up the road and 41km of one layer of gravel, which means this is deemed as phase one of this road betterment, which means you need another phase two and three – but because of limited funds, you phase it,’’ said the Roads Authority regional engineer for Kavango West, Kavango East and Zambezi, Kennedy Chigumira, who took the minister on a tour to inspect the site.
“We have come to appreciate and thank the contractor for the work that is done here because we can not only come here when there are challenges and problems. The idea of this road is to open up the hinterland of Namibia because this 138km road links to the tarred road of Mpungu and Tsumeb. It also links to the Rundu-Grootfontein road and links Kavango West to the Oshikoto and Ohangwena regions,” he said while visiting the site a week ago.
Mutorwa reiterated that the construction of roads provides much-needed opportunities for the villagers to be connected to other groups of society, which, in turn, instils in them a sense of being part of the national economic mainstream.
“Economists talk about we have to grow the economy, but you cannot grow the economy if you cannot assist the farmers so that what they produce can easily reach the market – and that is where the aspects of roads come in. When people are doing a good job, we need to appreciate them – not only wait for problems,’’ he noted.
“And that is why I want to convey my appreciation to the contractor and from our side as clients of the RA and the ministry; we should not struggle to pay what is due to the contractor on time. The objective of this project is to provide accessibility to the community and farmers, and the materials to be easily taken at the site of the donated school, which is being constructed by the Chinese government at Satotwa village,” he said.
“In terms of roads, we have not reached everywhere but something is happening and particularly this road that we are visiting today cuts from Oshivelo – just after Omuthiya; there is a gravel road, and this is the road that we link up there at Mpungu Vlei. Can you imagine how many people are going to benefit? So, let us thank the contractor, as he is doing his work,” said Mutorwa.
“This is also the time for us, as a nation, to think differently because you will always hear about lack of funding or inadequate funding; I remember the honourable minister said some of the things become imaginary excuses. Things will not be easier, moving forward, and that is where critical thinking comes in,” said the RA executive, Sidney Boois.
Boois said RA needs to use the funds available optimally.
“We are talking about the minimum optimum; with the minimum that we have, we need to do the optimum. That’s why we can also commend the contractor and the team as well as our engineers who say there need to be different ways of doing things, there need to be innovative and creative ways of doing things – and that is where we are today,’’ he said.
– jmuyamba@nepc.com.na