Swakop could become dirtiest town in Namibia

IF Swakopmund’s residents do not start caring for the tidiness and beauty of the town, it ‘could quickly become the dirtiest town in Namibia’, said Mayor Juuso Kambueshe at the last council meeting of the year last Wednesday.

‘The cleanliness and tidiness of our town is a major concern to me. We used to be the cleanest town in the country, but this is not the case anymore. I emphasise ‘used to be’,’ he said.Swakopmund CEO Eckart Demasius said it depended on where a person was in Swakopmund – and at what time of the week.’Sunday afternoons and payday weekends are the worst. Then one will see all the rubbish from the weekend accumulating, especially in town and public areas. I must say that I will stand up for our cleaning team. By Monday the place is cleaned up, especially in the CBD,’ he said.According to him, visitors to Swakopmund apparently still praised the town for its cleanliness, but he admitted that other towns such as Omaruru, Tsumeb and Otjiwarongo were also contending to be the cleanest towns in the country.Asked about the growing mass of used toilet paper blowing into the landscape from behind the DRC informal settlement, Demasius said this problem should be reduced after the formalisation of the DRC.’We can’t run after every person who has to go to the toilet and pick up their toilet paper, and we also can’t go and just build toilets now. What needs to be done is the DRC needs to be formalised,’ he said.