Windhoek
DTA president McHenry Venaani will once again make use of the municipal bus service to travel to and from work.
Last year Venaani used municipal buses as part of his presidential campaign and to acquaint himself with the problems municipal bus users face.
Venaani said this week he would in the next few weeks again make use of the municipal bus service, with the hope that he does not encounter the “same problems experienced previously”.
“The DTA of Namibia will share its findings and recommendations thereafter with the City of Windhoek,” Venaani said in a media release.
He expressed concern about complaints of municipal buses arriving late and in some instances not arriving at all.
The delay and apparent lack of effort to ensure greater efficiency and timeliness from the City of Windhoek only serves to further exacerbate this problem and puts the livelihood and jobs of many Namibians at extremely high risk, said the DTA president.
Venaani stressed: “It is important to note that a large group of low-income Namibians rely solely on the reliability and efficacy of the municipal bus service to get to and from work.
“In most cases manual labourers, domestic workers and part-time employees are the people who make use of the municipal bus service and thus are directly affected by the inefficiencies of the municipal bus service.”
This problem is particularly of concern during the winter months, he added.
“The DTA of Namibia accordingly calls on and implores the City of Windhoek to urgently look into additional bus routes, with greater frequency of busses passing through a given route so that labourers who only start work at 08h00 are not compelled to be waiting out in the cold at pick-up points from as early as 05h30, which is often when the extreme winter temperatures are at their peak,” he stated.
He suggested there should be temporary additional pick-up terminals. “We expect these measures to be in place by the time the winter of 2016 is upon us,” said Venaani.