Nuusita Ashipala

ONGWEDIVA - The Ongwediva Town Council is calling on crop field and homestead owners at Omatando to avail themselves for the second phase of evaluation of their properties, scheduled to kick off early February.
The call targets owners who were not available during the first phase of the evaluation of properties in April 2019.
Ongwediva spokesperson Jackson Muma said during the first phase, council could only evaluate 34 crop fields, leaving 17 more as the owners were not available.
“A total number of 34 traditional homesteads and fields in the affected area were measured, while 17 homesteads could not be finalised due to time constraints and unavailability of owners at the time,” said Muma.
The finalisation of this exercise is essential, as the council is preparing itself to compensate the owners of these affected homesteads.
The council, thus, further extends an invitation to owners whose homesteads were evaluated to visit the office and engage into compensation negotiations from January 27 this year. “Field owners of valued homesteads are hereby invited to visit the office to obtain determinations for compensation and engage into negotiations to that effect,” said Muma. Muma said council had already last year registered existing properties at Omatando in order for the council to plan promptly for the installation of services at the area.
Altogether, Omatando will have 2 287 erven as per the existing calendar, which includes homesteads that have not yet been evaluated.
“We have by last year already put up numbers at places that are already there,” said Muma.
Muma said once all the properties have been evaluated, council will then have a better outlook to install the much essential services, such as water, electricity and sewerage, as well as road infrastructure.
The spokesperson said council has engaged the community on several occasions and vowed the community will be given ample time to find another place shall they decide to leave.
“For now, people can continue to plough their crop fields as usual,” Muma said.