Minister of Works and Transport Veikko Nekundi expressed disappointment with progress on the construction of the Andara-Shamaturu road in the Kavango East Region.
The minister shared this during his visit to the project.

The construction of the road by Namibia Investment Contact (NIC) commenced on 10 February 2025.

The road was set to be constructed over a period of 12 months, at a cost of N$30 million.

11 months later the contractor only managed to deliver about 50% of the work.

"I expect this to be done even as gravel, not even bitumen. I expect you colleagues to have capacity, and you have been in business for a long time, Hungamo. You are not new; that's why with you I can't take any excuse. You are a business guru of the tricks in business. Therefore, what you are doing here is not up to standard, and it's not for a person of your capacity. You are not a businessperson by chance. Qualification-wise you are businesswise, so something is wrong. 'Please, I want this project completed,' stressed Nekundi.

The minister emphasised the importance of road infrastructure and the impact of project delay on the people.

The minister calls on local business owners to fulfil their duties on time and deliver quality work.

"Local business empowerment - you have my full support, but honestly speaking, not at the expense of the residents or the citizens. As much as you have my support, and I will do everything in my power to support the local entrepreneurs or contractors, we must equally be cognisant that this support is not a blank cheque; it comes with a commitment. Absolute commitment, because people will not listen to Veikko if I am delivering them excuses why we are not delivering on time, and I will not have a base to say we must support local entrepreneurs if we are doing that. So I expect us colleagues to be committed to doing everything in our domain to show that we execute the projects within time."

According to the project's consultant, Lovejoy Mapara, compensation of community members whose land the road runs through is one of the factors affecting the project's progress.
The payments are expected to be done as soon as the names are submitted to the ministry.

"The director of NIC, he considered shortcomings; it was to do with plant machinery. To date it is not 100% bid, and one weakness which we try to intervene through the Road Authority and ourselves is that the plant was not complete at the time when they started at the end of September. To date we have a 65 to 70% complete plant. It's not 100%, and diesel was a major effect. If they could not have stopped for 2 to 3 months because of diesel, we could have done better to date. The other thing is Hingo, the concrete subcontractor. He refuted and withdrew from the project. So the new contract is now established to start in December. Now he is being hindered by water because he is doing concrete, and concrete is on the water streams; we do not even do excavations." explained Mapara.

The remaining 50% of the work cannot be done in one month, as the project was set to end on 10 February this year.

The contractor has to come up with a turnaround strategy for the project to see its completion.