The Oshikuku Town Council was allocated N$5.7 million by the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MURD) to expand their sewerage pond, fence it off, and put up an embankment to prevent the overflow of sewerage in the current financial year.
The tender for the project was awarded to Kambwa Trading.
According to the Oshikuku Town Council's Public Relations Officer, John Siloiso, the town's eight sewerage ponds, which have been in existence for about twenty years, can no longer keep up due to the drastic increase in population, hence the need to revamp them.
Siloiso says there is a need to rehabilitate and expand the sewerage ponds to avoid the overflow, which is causing health hazards in the town.
Other work, he says, that will be carried out is to expand the ponds' boundaries to prevent overflow of sewerage water into the oshana, clean the existing ponds to be able to hold more water, and put an embankment to confine sewerage water within the boundary.
"Over the other side, we are creating another dam. We want this water to flow over to the other side so that it subsides instead of being full like this and then overflowing. In addition to that, you can see over there that there is another pond. We need to clean that up to create more room for this water. The water comes in here, and it has to flow into other ponds until the last one."
The Oshikuku Town Council plans to build a treatment plant to harvest sewer water and purify it for reuse in gardening and other activities except for human consumption.
Siloiso issued a stern warning to those who vandalised the sewer pond infrastructure to gain entrance.
"That includes even the gate; there used to be gates here; they were all stolen, and what we did now as council since last year was position a security guard here, but as you can see, it is open. Once we are completed with this whole exercise, we are going to have only one entrance that will be controlled. Anyone who comes here will have authorization from the office before they come on site."
He also informed livestock farmers to refrain from taking their animals to graze and drink water from the pond area.
The actual work of revamping the sewerage ponds started in February this year, and the first phase will be completed by the end of 2024, with the second phase kicking off in the next financial year.