A Sinking Town

ONDANGWA town is going down the drain so fast that even future archaeologists would be puzzled as to how this town so quickly sank into non-existence.

Our roads are in shambles. Most of the time there is no water in our taps. Electricity supply is on an ‘on-off’ haphazard basis, damaging business development. There is no flood management plan to speak of. Large tracts of land are sold off to dodgy developers. Well done Ondangwa Town Council! Congratulations to the new shopping mall. More houses will now be flooded and only high-ranking government officials could possibly afford shopping in the new mall, but they are all in Windhoek. Great plan indeed. And then there is the never-ending problem of Omashaka, the largest township in Ondangwa. Up come signs at the B1 stating a long list of companies who are to provide sewerage, roads and water to the majority of Ondangwans living under deplorable conditions in Omashaka. Then down come the signs again… facilitated by the enormous fleet of Ondangwa Town Council ‘Water Section’ vehicles driving around Ondangwa, or parked at bars 24/7, we wonder? Ondangwa proudly calls itself a town. Then why, councillors, are there large numbers of cattle, goats, donkeys and pigs roaming the streets of Ondangwa? One family of five pigs has permanently settled at the open market – a sanitary health hazard, by the way – comfortably living there off all the rubbish never cleaned up by the numerous sleeping-on-duty municipal cleaners.The core of the problem is that most Ondangwa Town councillors and their employees – the civil servants – are on a double pay-cheque. A dream situation for those who are running all sorts of private businesses (mostly huge bars, construction/road companies or kambashu shebeens) while receiving GRN salary and private revenue, but a nightmare for the town they are supposed to run, maintain and develop.Fed up OndangwansOndangwa