Sewage removal and water supply business owners at Rundu are unhappy with the order by the local town council for them to stop fetching water at the Rundu beach.

This, they claim, will severely affect their business.

The water supply business owners have been fetching water at Rundu Beach and supplying it to settlements around the town without tap water.

The business owners claim that the water at Rundu Beach is much cleaner than that in other parts of the river.

Kaunda Thomas has been doing the business for almost six years. He says the road leading to Rundu Beach is much safer for them considering they carry 100 litres of water each trip.

"Previously, we have known it as a public place, but now we are being hindered from entering this place. Apparently,  we cannot get water here because this is the only place where we have good access to the road, so now it's a problem. It's becoming a problem because we are no longer allowed to get water from here. The reason why we get water from here is that the water is very good and clean due to the rock under the water."

Businessman Theodor Spigle says, "The water we fetch from that side is very dirty, here we get clean water, so most of our customers now are suffering because the road on that side is not also safe, like today we experienced a car that fell in the river, so I am not very happy with this situation."

The businessmen are seeking clarity as to how those fetching water at Rundu Beach will impact the recreation areas. 

It is alleged that the step was taken because business owners are dumping sewage in the river.   

But this could not be confirmed, and attempts to get a comment from the town council were unsuccessful.

The manager of Rundu Beach, Peter Immanuel, said although business owners are stopped from fetching water there, they are not stopped from using the road to access other portions of the river.

"The idea of us coming in and saying that we are stopping people from fetching water here at the beach is that we do not have the right or either mandate to stop people from fetching water. Mind you, this river is running 600 km all the way into Botswana, and the beach is just a fragment of this river that we are reserving for tourism only, so we did not stop anyone from fetching water, what we advised the people was for them to start using a different point."

Immanuel says an announcement was sent out through the town council to inform the public of the changes taking place at the beach.