26 Jun 2013

Government has allocated over P500 000 for the construction of 115 houses for people who were left homeless by the heavy down pours early this year in the North West District.

The North West District council chairperson, Mr Lathang Molonda told a full council meeting on June 25 that a total of 93 houses would be constructed in the jurisdiction of Maun Administrative Authority while the remaining 22 would be built in the Okavango Sub-district.

He said in order to fast track implementation, the council was considering to engage Maun Technical College final year students to construct some of the houses while the rest would be done by artisans from the respective villages.

Mr Molonda thanked government for being passionate in dealing with issues of humanitarian assistance and he urged the councillors to take keen interest in the projects within their wards and ensure smooth and timely implementation.

On poverty eradication projects, councillors were informed that 527 beneficiaries had been trained in backyard gardens in the entire district and construction had commenced in all the sub-districts.

Mr Molonda noted that in Maun, 95 net shades had been constructed and 30 backyard gardens planted with vegetables while Okavango Sub-district had 19 net shade constructed and only three gardens planted. In Ngami Sub District, 22 net shades had been constructed and only six gardens planted, he added.

The council chairperson explained that the project had experienced delays in construction due to slow delivery of materials by suppliers. He also observed that water shortage in some areas had delayed construction and planting of vegetables.

In addition, he said, shortage of transport hindered the establishment and monitoring of projects on timely basis adding that efforts were being made towards the achievement of poverty eradication initiative, as the council had so far spent over P1million. 

The council, he said, was allocated over P2million for implementation and four alternative packages would be covered namely; fashion design, food catering, bakery and beauty &hair salon while other packages are being implemented by other ministries.

Mr Molonda noted that a total of 21 projects which were operational included 10 sewing projects, seven bakeries, one hair salon, two food catering and one upholstery project.

He told councillors that the Department of Gender Affairs had 35 operational projects in the district while 86 people from four constituencies in the district benefited from the alternative projects.

Mr Molonda said the alternative packages and gender affairs department had challenges of lack of operational space, lack of shelter for some beneficiaries and indecisive beneficiaries on project selection. Shortage of transport was also an obstacle to project monitoring and that has led to the collapse of some projects.

He said in their quest to overcome the challenges, some remedial strategies had been devised such as monitoring of projects in collaboration with Village Extension Teams.

Regarding diarrhoea and malaria situations, he said the district is stable. “We have accepted levels of diarrhea in children under five years while the number of confirmed malaria cases has significantly gone done”, he added.

He said despite the stable situation, the health authorities are still vigilant for any outbreaks especially for diarrhea which is common at this time of the year. ENDS