The head of rural water supply in the Oshikoto Region, Stevenson Tuukondjele, has said people are becoming increasingly agitated over a lack of access to water and insulting them when visiting the ministry offices due to these challenges.

Tuukondjele said in an interview with Nampa on Tuesday that several people from Eengodi, Okankolo, Nehale Lyampingana, and some Omuthiya areas have a tendency to approach their offices and insult them because of the ongoing water scarcity.

“These people come to our offices requesting us to give them clean water regularly, with their bottles filled with dirty water from traditional wells or any other source of water they get water from, and then throw hard words at us,” said Tuukondjele.

He said regardless of the efforts of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water, and Land Reform (MAWLR) in installing boreholes in several parts of the constituencies, there is a need to intensify their efforts to install and drill more boreholes in the region before it gets worse by July.

“We appreciate the government's efforts in trying to install boreholes, but we need them to speed up so we can install more boreholes and desalination plants at salty boreholes,” explained Tuukondjele.

He added that this year’s low rainfall has also contributed heavily to the water challenge in the region.

“Our Calueque water system could not provide sufficient water because it is getting old, but we are also aware of the government programmes to rehabilitate the pipeline between Ondangwa and Omutsegonime,” said Tuukondjele.

He advised that the government should make contingency plans to assist the constituencies by delivering an emergency water tanker to the communities in the region.

“Some communities travel over 20 kilometres to get access to water in areas like Okankolo and the Eengodi Constituency,” he reported.

MAWLR has drilled over 30 boreholes in the region, but almost half of them are not safe for human and animal consumption because of their high salt content.