Nambia and Zambia to start dredging Zambezi River

Namibia and Zambia are negotiating a joint dredging project for the Zambezi River to deepen waterways and mitigate the impact of severe seasonal flooding.

Minister of works and transport Veikko Nekundi has confirmed this.

Dredging is the process of removing sand, gravel, mud, or debris from the bottom of lakes or rivers to deepen waterways, facilitate navigation, reclaim land, or prevent floods.

The Zambezi region is currently hit hard by seasonal floods, especially in the Kabbe South and Kabbe North constituencies, where over 1 510 people have been displaced.

The floods have submerged residents’ homesteads, schools, clinics, crop fields and roads.

Nekundi was in the Zambezi region over the weekend to assess floating bridges that were installed for better access, and the damage the floods have caused the roads, especially the Bukalo-Sifuha access road.

He said the Zambezi River needs to be dredged, because it has become shallow and cannot accommodate the high influx of water.

He said the government is currently working on the dredging machine that was procured in 2015 and will finish working on it by the end of this month.

“Once we are done, we plan to start dredging the Zambezi River, although it’s a task that needs to be completed between Namibia and Zambia.

“Therefore, we are in the process of getting Zambia to renew the dredging agreement. Once it’s finalised, we need to dredge the Zambezi River to minimise the impact of flooding on the communities.

“Another aspect is that we also want to dredge the inland streams to two metres so they are also deeper and have more catchment of water to avoid overflowing,” he said.

Zambezi governor Dorothy Kabula-Simushi over the weekend said the fact that no flood-related death has been reported is a good sign, although there are other flood-related challenges.

She said the region has successfully relocated flood-affected families to the nine existing relocation camps.

“We have also relocated three flood-affected schools, namely Nankuntwe Combined School, Muzii Combined School, and Mpukano Primary School, to higher grounds.

“We are feeding the relocated schools and families with food provided to us by the Office of the Prime Minister, the Red Cross, and local businesses every day.

“We also received floating bridges that have been installed at Kalimbeza and Masikili villages to create accessibility for communities that are cut off by floods,” she said.

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