By Maggy Thomas and Wonder Guchu WINDHOEK Some residents of Katutura’s Wanaheda township in Samora Machel constituency are disappointed and angry with the Windhoek City Council and their councillor for the bad state of the roads in the area. The roads that are a cause for concern to the residents are those that branch off Tugela Street – Hwang Ho, Darling, Yang Tse, Swan, Tigris, Potamac and Ganges, among others – and roads such as Harare, Nairobi, Luanda and Lusaka. Most of the residents say that the location is dusty during the dry season and muddy when it rains. “We are sick and tired of the city council. We are paying water and electricity bills but the council is turning a blind eye to the state of the roads. Roads in new locations such as Rocky Crest and Otjomuise are tarred roads, yet Wanaheda, which has been in existence for more than 20 years, still has dusty streets,” fumed one resident. “We are tired of dust and we have to clean every day,” said one resident who has lived in Wanaheda since 1987. “We can’t eat while our doors are open. It’s also difficult to leave our clothes on the washing line,” he complained. Along Hwang Ho Road, for example, is a broken sewer pipe that has been gushing dirty water for more than a month now. Residents say it usually takes the city council workers weeks to attend to the sewer and that it does not take long before the same sewer pipe breaks again. Contacted for comment, the area’s councillor, John Otto Nankudhu, said that he had tried in vain to get the city council to rectify the situation. “We have so far sent more than 20 letters to the council asking about the roads but nothing has been done yet,” said Nankudhu. But he told Nampa that the council has promised to draw up a budget for the surfacing of roads in 2006/07. According to a survey conducted by the City of Windhoek in 2004, Wanaheda has 3 489 households with 16 322 inhabitants. – Nampa
2006-10-102024-04-23By Staff Reporter