The Otjiwarongo Municipality will be holding a stakeholder engagement launch to drive publicity for the hosting of the largest biomass plant on the continent.

Otjiwarongo is the first town in Namibia to be selected to host the plant and the second in Southern Africa.

The launch of the project, which will take place on September 21, will attract over 20 stakeholders in the wastewater treatment plant and waste-to-energy projects that incorporate biomass.

The event will sensitise key players and residents about the envisioned biomass plant.

"We foresee to attract over 150 participants at that particular workshop, and it is a workshop that we really want to see, because everyone else there hears Otjiwarongo Biomass, and we want to have really good publicity that is truthful and good publicity of what we are planning to do, because at the end, you know, we really want to make sure that, and that is where we also want to do media monitoring, because we know some people have some perception of what we are intending to do, which is actually so," says Otjiwarongo Municipality Acting CEO Erikson Mwanyekange.

The multi-million-dollar Biomass Industrial Park project will be located on a 100-hectare piece of land where tonnes of wood chips, charcoal, char briquettes, biofuel, and biochar will be produced.

The biomass produced is to be exported to Europe, where the country is phasing out the use of coal for power production.

The new strategic plan will be launched before the end of the year.

"These are some of the events coming and ultimately our housing initiatives at the low end, where we are engaging new development partners, the likes of the development workshop programme, and putting up over 400 houses for low-income earners."