Okahandja
Okahandja Mayor Johannes ‘Congo’ Hindjou says maintaining cleanliness in the garden town of Okahandja is a priority for the municipality this year.
Hindjou says in the past there was no proper planning or budget for maintaining cleanliness at the town: “That was the question we asked when we came into office and we were told that there was no money, but the new chief executive officer is trying her best to tackle that issue.”
Further, he said the community cannot be blamed entirely for the state of the town.
“If we don’t have skip containers in place to dump waste, can we really blame the community? We can only blame the community if there are skip containers and they continue to dump waste anywhere,” he remarked.
He said the town is saddled with many problems, but with the right attitude these challenges can be resolved.
“It will take time, but we will keep informing the community about our progress. At a recent community meeting we informed the community about the problems we have at hand and asked them to give us time, because some of these things take time,” Hindjou explained.
He also said providing the community with electricity servoces and doing away with illegal electricity connections is a priority for the new town council.
Asked what he would do differently since these were also priorities of the previous council, the mayor explained that he would adopt a collaborative approach, whereby the community and council would be included in developmental issues concerning the town.
“If you are elected by the people it’s not about what you want to do. It’s not what I want to do, but I should have the interest of the community at heart. I’m from Okahandja and I’m not doing this for myself. I’m doing this for the generations to come,” he said.