RUNDU – Residents of Rundu are unhappy with the ever-increasing litter swamping the town, while bad roads are also a major concern.
Rundu is a fast growing town but the poor roads and huge amounts of litter downgrade its appearance and growth potential.
Residents now fear that the filth could turn away investors who identified Rundu as potential home for their businesses.
“Litter will derail our development, it is really shameful to see how my hometown is so dirty and imagine it is the capital of the region Kavango East and yet it is not well taken care of,” a concerned resident said.
“We all know that a clean town attracts visitors and investors but look at how Rundu has become. I am not just putting the blame on the town’s administration but also on residents who are not doing anything to prevent the increasing litter that is heaped up at almost every corner of town. People throw things anywhere, they dump waste everywhere and it’s uncalled for,” said Wensel Mavara, another concerned resident.
Some residents said they dump garbage on the streets because their dustbins are full because of non-collection by the municipality.
Mavara congratulated students of the Unam Rundu campus who organised a campaign to clean up the town on Saturday October 4.
“I would like to congratulate Unam Rundu campus students for the good initiative to try and keep the town clean,” he said, emphasising that such an attitude is needed among the people of Rundu.
“We should not only blame the town’s leadership, we as residents should also take action. I suggest that more awareness campaigns be initiated by the town’s leadership. I want the town council to create a department which can look after the beauty of the town – since independence we never had lawns or recreation facilities like parks where people can rest after spending time and money in town,” Mavara said.
Besides the increased litter around Rundu, the roads are also worn out and what were once gravel roads are now sand roads and motorists have to fix their cars every now and then due to the damage caused by the bumpy and sandy roads, while cars get stuck in sand in town and one has to ask pedestrians to push them out. However, the town council has rehabilitated some of the roads but more still needs to be done.
“Our roads are a problem, it’s not comfortable to drive in Rundu and the tenders given out to upgrade the roads are unproductive,” said yet another unhappy resident.
When New Era further spoke to some of the town’s residents on how they felt about the poor road conditions and litter many were of the opinion that the town council was incompetent and doesn’t care about residents’ complaints.
One resident said: “We have aired our complaints on the local radio but nothing has been done.”
When New Era approached the Chief Executive Officer of the Rundu Town Council, Romanus Haironga, he told New Era that the council was working on a plan to eradicate litter.
“We have already started working on the main roads that are in a bad state, and have recently completed some of the gravel roads around town. The other roads that are in a bad state like the road in Sauyemwa that leads from the tarred road to the clinic, we need to rehabilitate and tar and will continue to other suburbs till we reach Kaisosi,” said Haironga over the phone.
He further said that the roads leading to the other clinics, namely Sauyemwa clinic in Sauyemwa informal settlement and Nkarapamwe clinic in Safari location would be tarred as well.
Concerning the litter, Haironga said: “We are busy working on a cleaning up programme especially on the problematic areas where there is a lot of litter and we plan to make use of community members and other stakeholders’ assistance and it will soon be announced this month,” said Haironga.
Haironga further urged residents not to dump their litter anywhere but to make use of dumping sites and bins, adding that action would be taken against anyone found illegally dumping waste and other rubbish.
“The behaviour of our people is also a problem, they don’t take waste to the dumpsite or where it can be collected and they dump it in the streets.”
Rundu is the capital of the Kavango East Region. The town is strategically located as all roads from Namibia’s neighbouring countries of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana go through Rundu via the Trans-Zambezi Corridor to Walvis Bay port.