LUHONONO - The learners of Kabbe flood-prone areas including nearby villages who for years suffered commuting long distances while others slept in dilapidated temporary structures will soon breathe a sigh of relief once the multi-million state-of-the-art hostel is complete.
August 26 has been appointed to construct the N$92 million state-of-the-art school hostel at Schuckmannsburg Combined School in the Kabbe North constituency of the Zambezi region.
This comes after the previous contractor who was awarded the tender in August
2016, with the projection of completing the project in December 2019, abandoned the project after being paid about N$13 million.
In an interview with the site agent on Tuesday, Cecilia Shitumbuleni said the school hostel project comprises four blocks with a capacity of about 360 learners.
Kabbe North councillor, Bernard Sisamu said the hostel being constructed at Schuckmannsburg (now Luhonono) has come at an opportune time for needy learners in the Kabbe flood-prone areas.
“The project was given to Uzizi construction company. They abandoned the project for years. Then government decided to give the construction of the hostel to August 26,” Sisamu said.
Speaking during the site handover last year, education minister Anna Nghipondoka said due to a lack of capacity and many other factors, the project suffered unnecessary delays and legal battles, at the expense and disadvantage of innocent Namibian children.
“Although disheartening, it is also worth mentioning that these delays over the years have caused the project’s value to escalate by close to N$25 million. This is a total waste of government resources, which are already scarce and hard to come by,” she was quoted while fuming at local companies who take government for an expensive ride.
“That is totally unacceptable, unethical, and unpatriotic. We do not want these briefcase businesses, people who only come to take money, after a small job, they vanish,” the minister remarked.
Once completed, the hostel will consist of four dormitories equipped with ablution facilities for girls and boys, a kitchen, a dining hall, two laundry rooms, a supervisor’s house and a multipurpose hall.
Sisamu applauded the government for having constructed the state-of-the-art school hostel which he says will accommodate many students from other constituencies especially those in the flood-prone areas.
“It is a massive project. It will benefit not only the Luhonono community but also the outside communities. Initially, the learners were accommodated in unsafe temporary structures. August 26 responded to our plea and build a proper temporary structure while the hostel blocks will be finished. August 26 saw how kids were suffering,” he stated.
According to him, the girls were unsupervised, which led to high teenage pregnancies. Hence, he believes once the hostel project is complete, learners will be more supervised as they will live close to teachers.
Meanwhile, Luhonono area induna (headman), Thadius Matengu expressed gratitude towards the government for constructing a hostel in his area.
He feels learners will be more supervised once the project is completed compared to their previous dilapidated structures.
“Our learners will be safe now. They use to suffer a lot. Even dogs used to eat up their food when they go to classes because their structures were not conducive for dwelling. We thank the government for the project which will enable our learners to learn in a good environment,” Matengu applauded.
August 26 is also building a service block and a guard house, in addition to the sewer system, fencing and the road.
The official handover of the project to August 26 was done on 9 September 2022.
“The project started last year September. We are expected to take two years to complete. So, we are expected to finish next year around the same time we started. We are on course with the project,” she updated.
According to Shitumbuleni, although Kabbe North partly also gets affected by floods, they are determined to finish their work on time.
“It is mainly just floodwater. We have to make sure we are ahead of ourselves so water doesn’t affect us and won’t be able to do anything. The water table is very high, which makes it hard to work especially when we are constructing our underground main holes and tanks. We are trying to make sure we do the work well especially during dry season,” she maintained.
The project employs 104 workers on site, including locals.