The Otjozondjupa Regional Council has amended the criteria for drought relief aid to include informal settlement households.

This was confirmed by the Regional Council Chairperson, Marlene Mbakera, who also chairs the regional disaster risk management committee.

5,000 households in informal settlements in the region's five major towns will benefit from the drought relief aid under the peri-urban programme.

They now join a list of 15,960 registered households, pushing up demand.

"The inclusion of the peri-urban areas, namely the informal settlements that we so much advocated for, has been approved. Although we are not happy with the current approved amount of N$5,000, we initially requested N$10,000. I can assure you that we will continue to strive to ensure that more eligible beneficiaries in informal areas are covered."

Mbakera advised that the marginalised feeding programme under the Tsumkwe Constituency Office be merged with the drought relief aid.

"If we don't streamline and we don't keep it together, you will see that the same people will benefit from the many programmes that the government is having for social needs. So it's really very important that we think about merging these programmes so that when the day that drought relief for the peri-urban will be done, it should be the same day that we do it for the marginalised community, and we do it all together. Because in the absence of doing it all together, we will have double beneficiaries, which is negatively affecting some people who have never, never benefitted from the Government of the Republic of Namibia."

Food distribution, which started in the region in October last year, concluded this month.

Over 205,000 bags of maize meal and cooking oil were distributed, including over 310,000 tinned fish and soya mince packets, in the last six months.

The Okakarara Constituency has the highest number of affected households at 7,153, followed by Tsumkwe with 4,260, and Okahandja is the least with 400.