The Zambezi region is facing a severe police staff shortage, with only 712 officers serving about 142 000 residents, governor Dorothy Kabula-Simushi says.
Kabula-Simushi revealed this during her state of the region address in Katima Mulilo yesterday.
She said the current ratio between police and the residents is one officer for every 201 residents, as opposed to the ideal ratio of one police officer per 50 residents.
“Despite the region being seriously understaffed, the Namibian Police remain committed to fighting crimes, including manning the porous border to ensure the security of our society, while there are eight police stations and several police posts across the region.
“Furthermore, with this limited police force, there has been a slight decrease in reported crime cases from 4 095 in 2024 to 3 526 cases recorded in 2025,” she said.
Kabula-Simushi said the police, during the period under review, conducted 29 operations where 102 suspects were arrested, nine illegal immigrants were apprehended and 279 illegal products were confiscated.
“The criminal investigation division recorded 2 955 cases; that translates to a crime reduction of 1 073 compared to 4 028 recorded during the same period last year,” she said.
She added that stock theft remains a serious problem in the region, which recorded 184 cases involving the theft of 614 head of cattle valued at approximately N$3 million.
“The law enforcement and cross-border cooperation managed to recover 299 [head of] cattle valued at more than N$1 million.
It is unfortunate to report that 336 [head of] cattle worth more than N$2 million were not recovered.
I, therefore, urge the new police regional commander to work closely with other security forces to ensure that the perpetrators are uprooted,” she said.
On agricultural activities in the region, Kabula-Simushi said the Kalimbeza rice project planted 46 hectares of rice and harvested 137 tonnes of rice.
She said despite challenges faced with the project, an amount of N$40 million has been spent on planting, weeding and bird scaring.
“The processing machine is partially repaired and the rice sorter machine still has not been fixed since 2018. The sorting is being done manually by a few staff members.”
She said storage remains a challenge, adding that the current storage capacity is too inconsequential to accommodate a bumper harvest.
“The third challenge is lack of a market.
I, therefore, call upon disaster risk management under the Office of the Prime Minister to prioritise the Kalimbeza rice to be considered for distribution during drought relief and flood victims to un-shelve the stock at the Kalimbeza rice project.
The realisation of the Zambezi Food Basket must be evident,” she said.
Kabula-Simushi expressed disappointment with the slow pace of construction on several roads, including the Bukalo-Muyako-Ngoma road and the Makanga and Masida access roads.
“The B8 section between Mulanga and the Kongola checkpoint needs serious and urgent rehabilitation.
Equally, the section of the B8 road between Chetto and Omega 1 needs urgent rehabilitation to avoid loss of lives.
I, therefore, call upon the road authority to strengthen their supervision of these roads,” she said.
