The Deputy Minister of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture, Dino Ballotti, is disappointed at the snail's pace of the construction of the Nkurenkuru Multipurpose Youth Resource Center.

He expressed this at the handover of the material to the Rural Youth Enterprises at Nkurenkuru.

“We're standing on a gravel pitch where I would want us to be standing on a grass field. And I'm going to say again, I'm truly not happy. Our Chairperson of the Council, Her Worship, our mayor, our deputy mayor, you are too kind. Are you listening? He's taking notes. You are too kind. We need more letters saying that you also are not happy. Now, this field that we're standing on today, young people, I can tell you that I've been here.

“We've written memos, we've written emails, we've written letters, we've engaged, we've WhatsApped, but yet still today we're standing on a field of sand and stone. I'm not happy,” he said.

The Nkurenkuru Multipurpose Youth Resource Center is aimed at promoting youth engagement in sports and recreational activity.

The project completed the fencing during the 2020/2021 financial year, and in 2022/2023 the ministry allocated N$200,000 for plot clearing and maintenance.

In the 2024/2025 financial year, it received N$10 million for phase one, which focused on feasibility studies, design, documentation, and layout.

The plan is to construct the Nkurenkuru Multipurpose Youth Resource Center over three financial years from 2025 to 2027.

The ministry earmarked an additional amount of N$45 million.

Said Filipus Tenga, Chairperson of the Kavango West Regional Council:

“We need these things to be done. We even asked the ministry, especially the ED in the ministry of youth, to consider this one as a priority as the minister has indicated. We want these things to be done on time. So that our people, our youth, can at least have a place where they can entertain themselves.”

David Nekaro, Chairperson of the Kavango West Youth Forum, said the youth have been struggling to get assistance towards sport development.

“We are struggling in terms of sport development. We have seen very recently our under-20 young people who went for the game in ||Karas and how they performed. They did not perform well, and no one was selected for the national team because of that, and you can already see that is the background in terms of sports where they are coming from. They are coming from areas where there are no sports facilities, which is a pity,” he said.

The project is managed by the Namibia Training Authority and the Rundu Vocational Training Centre.