Governor of the Kavango East Region, Hamunyera Hambyuka, is unhappy with the material being used to construct the Ndiyona-Djaradjara road in the Ndiyona Constituency.

Phase 1 of the 35-kilometre Ndiyona-Djaradjara road started in November 2026 and was expected to be completed in 10 months.

The previous contract was terminated, as they could not meet the requirements and could only manage to cover 4 kilometres in 7 months.

The Chinese construction company, Chico Construction, is now on site. 

However, during his visit to the site, Governor Hambyuka was not pleased with the material used. 

"Whether it's the first or second layer, these are just what we call 'suguru'. Suguru ositure nzira kwahara, People will die here. When it rains, these things are slippery; people will die. You are saying no. I won't? Let's start counting."

The governor requested the material be changed for the safety of the people.

Meanwhile, Kavango East engineer for the Roads Authority (RA), Kennedy Chigumira, explained that the material used by Chico is better than the ones used before.

"But when you get money, we are not getting the whole money, let's say, to construct a full gravel road or a full tarred road, but we cannot stop doing work because people want accessibility. So if you look now, the work we are doing here is called an RBU work and Roving Bitumen Unit. Actually the works should be just opening, debushing and formation with the same material without this layer, which is called a bitumen unit, but what we have done is we have now said if we just do that and form with that sand, the moment two cars go through there, they're going down, but because we don't have money, what should we do? We said we'll do that, and then we'll just come for now with this one layer of gravel just to allow people that while we are getting the other money to do a full-fledged gravel road."

The road will go through Ndiyona-Djaradjara-Kandjara-Dcude-Cwiba-Khaudum-Shikerete and link up with the Tsumkwe road.

Overall, the road is 200 kilometres long and travels over two regions, namely Kavango East and Otjozondjupa.

The government, through the Road Fund Administration, funded the project with approximately N$29 million. 

Chico construction is expected to complete 31 kilometres in 6 months.