Deputy Minister of Urban and Rural Development Natalia |Goagoses has called on the Leonardville Village Council to prioritize the provision of land to enable young people to set up businesses in order to address unemployment.

|Gaogoses made this remark at the launch of the village council development fund at Leonardville in the Aminuis constituency.

Goagoses says the village council has to stick to its vision to create an enabling environment for locals.

"What I want from you is your commitment to creating an enabling environment. I want you to provide land to the young people because the environment that you can create, which is within your mandate, is land. Please do me the favor and go and identify the portion of land, invite those eager unemployed young people, and provide such land to those people so that they can do business such as poultry farming and crop farming; I have seen boys even wanting any other economic projects that you can think of; please do that for us. Give land so that young people can do business on that land."

The Urban and Rural Development Deputy Minister also urged the council to foster teamwork in order to ensure that development is happening without delay.

The Chief Regional Officer of the Omaheke Regional Council, Pecka Semba, echoed the sentiment, saying the council has to align itself with its strategic plan objectives in order to answer the call of social progression aspects at Leonardville Village Council.

"I drove through Leonardville and I saw the beautiful road that you're busy upgrading; something is happening in Leonardville; something is happening, and I could see the beauty of this town even with its shanty towns organized; you can see people are happy, and the development fund will go a long way into establishing that."

Also speaking at the same occasion was the Chairperson of the Village Council, Salomi Witbooi, who said the established development fund will be supported by the five-year strategic plan to ensure service provision.

"To meet under one roof to witness this outstanding event, the first of its kind among the village councils, I want to see which village council will say you're not the first based on our research; the Leonardville Village Council is the first to launch the development fund apart from municipalities, but among the village councils, Leonardville is the first."

The village council also raised more than N$90,000 towards the development fund.