Staff Reporter
Nkurenkuru
Nkurenkuru Constituency – one of eight constituencies in Kavango West Region – has a high rate of teenage pregnancy, while alcohol abuse is also rife in this rural constituency, said Swapo MP Julius Hamunyera Hambyuka when he addressed belated independence celebrations here.
Hambyuka said unemployment among the youth also remains high, while the rate of school drop-outs linked to the high rate of teenage pregnancy is alarming in Nkurenkuru Constituency.
On a positive note Hambyuka was grateful that Nkurenkuru has benefitted from the decentralisation of NaTIS, that has taken its services to the rural outback, while the International University of Management (IUM) has also opened a satelite campus.
The presence of NaTIS and IUM in Nkurenkuru, according to the Swapo parliamentarian, will ease the burden of people having to travel long distances to Rundu to seek these services.
Hambyuka also expressed concern over the fact that the weak mobile telephone signal in the area, which results in the service being interrupted by a more powerful signal from Angola, leaving many people without proper access to MTC, the country’s largest mobile service provider.
During the celebrations, the Nkurenkuru Regional Councillor Damian Nakambare handed one 50kg bag of maize meal, a blanket and washing powder to Kakuni Lahia, one of many elderly people who do not possess any national identification document beside her baptism card.
She therefore does not obtain a pension grant and is thus unable to properly feed herself and the family, as she also does not have work. According to her daughter, Ndara Aune, their family survives from the little money they get from clearing people’s fields. “We survive from the money we get when we weed other people’s fields and from selling mutete and manketti fruits,” Ndara said.