Kavango East Regional Council only managed to implement 70% of its intended projects in the 2022–2023 financial year.

This was revealed at a review and planning meeting held at Rundu.

During the review process, various divisions and directorates delivered presentations, highlighting their achievements and challenges faced during the 2022–2023 financial year.

Chairperson of the Kavango East Regional Council, Damian Maghambayi, stated that most of the directorate failed to accomplish their targets due to budget constraints.

"However, as much as we are planning in this region (I am now referring to the Kavango East Region), our planned activities are being showered with negative input from the central government. We were recently in the Zambezi Region, where we did benchmarking on how we can also emulate the water pipelines in the region, and one of the approaches is for us to start with a feasibility study on how these pipelines will be erected in the region."

According to Maghamabyi, the council may still end up operating in the red during the current fiscal year.

"As of currently, the regional council is operating in the red, most of the operational activities have been halted, and there are some possibilities that the next budget or the next financial year budget will be paying expenses that we have acquired for this financial year, so that is the situation at hand. We are in very deep trouble, and we don't know how to move forward."

Maghambayi also calls for cooperation among different ministries.

"This is where I was arguing with the directorate of planning, saying that we were given a constitutional mandate where we should also equally plan like the National Planning Commission, and then we have to seize this opportunity to ensure that our planning is truly benefiting the region; we should not say this one is not ours and that one is for this ministry, but while the mandate says you can plan just like the National Planning Commission."