Rundu
Omashare Lodge again fell victim to flooding as water from the streets of the Rundu CBD drained into the lodge causing damage to the property. The flooding of Omashare is due to the lack of a storm water drainage system in town.
The lodge owner each year needs to repair the damage caused by flooding. “We claim from our insurance but it causes our premium to increase and it’s unfair due to storm water systems not being installed,” said the lodge general manager Mauro Rosa.
As the town develops more water is channelled towards the lodge as it lies at the lower end of the main road. “The water needs to be channelled somewhere else,” Rosa said.
According to Rosa they wrote a letter about the problem to the Rundu Town Cuncil in 2013 but have not seen a response to their complaint.
“Our proposal that we gave the council is to at least build an open storm water system to channel the water all the way to the floodplain – the water can be channelled between the lodge and the police station as we are neighbours,” Rosa added.
Rundu town CEO Romanus Haironga conceded the town has a problem with storm water.
“With more developments coming to town, with the interlocking, the roofing of buildings and the tarred roads, when it rains the water becomes too much and it flows down through town to the lower ground areas,” he said.
“But the main challenge in the past was that when the town infrastructure was being constructed the town was still small and there was less planning for storm water drainage. In recent years we have begun to realise the problem, which is why we started thinking about what to do,” he said.
“We are challenged by storm water but we started with a study called the short-to-medium road and storm water master plan, planned for this financial year,” he said.
Haironga said the council wants to construct new gravel roads in selected suburbs as well as upgrade the damaged gravel roads around suburbs and locations and also the tarred roads and at the same time build storm water channels for the water to flow through all the way to the floodplains.