The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform, Inge Zaamwani, has expressed satisfaction with the progress made at the integrated Fonteintjie Fish Farm in Keetmanshoop.

Zaamwani toured the facility as part of her official visit to inspect agricultural projects in the ||Kharas Region, where she praised the farm's potential and called for greater collaboration among stakeholders.

"The project has huge potential. And if we all work together as stakeholders, there are few snag items on the list that we need to resolve. And once we resolve that, the ministry is ready to scale up the project and to facilitate the capacity building for small-scale farmers to also become part of this integrated project," said Zaamwani.

She noted that the project contributes to national food security and can become a major source of fish once fully operational.

"I am told that once this project is up and running full-scale in terms of fish harvesting, we would be harvesting quite a lot of fish, which we can sell to the market and also put on the shelves in the stores here or in the whole country," she added.

The minister highlighted the success of combining aquaculture with crop production and stressed the importance of replicating this model elsewhere in Namibia. However, she expressed concern over the vandalism of the facility’s infrastructure and called on community members to protect public investments.

"A little bit of support from the community would be appreciated. Because when the government puts up infrastructure as big as this one, it being vandalised is not good," Zaamwani said.

She urged local leaders to raise awareness about the impact of vandalism and to encourage residents to take ownership of development initiatives in their area.