The Swakopmund Municipality has ramped up its budget for water and sanitation infrastructure over the past years in order to carry out the type of critical infrastructure work that is unique to the town.
At a recent council budget tabling meeting, chairperson of the Swakopmund Council management committee Wilfried Groenewald said the capital budget for water and sanitation for the 2023/24 financial year is N.dollars 40 million, which they intend to keep on increasing for the future.
This is part of the council’s N.dollars 685 million overall budget, which includes an operating budget of over N.dollars 527 million and a capital expenditure budget of N.dollars 158 million.
“Council has budgeted N.dollars 5 million for a new sewerage rising main, N.dollars 2 million for a sewer pump station and N.dollars 8.7 million for extra cleaning of drains and flooding prevention. However, we must be honest about where we stand as too many of our pump stations are run until they fail, some of our wastewater works can’t handle the load and spills are still far too prevalent,” he noted.
Groenewald added that of all the ways to spend a town’s revenue, investment in water and sanitation infrastructure is arguably the most crucial, therefore the only way to carry on the encouraging improvements seen now is to increase investment even further and for that investment to happen, it must be funded.
An estimated N.dollars 79 million will be budgeted in the next financial year (2024/25) for infrastructure projects, the bulk of which will go towards upgrading and expanding water and sanitation infrastructure across the town.
“We are investing to get ahead and stay ahead as we gear up for the Swakopmund of the future. We will not allow the decay and neglect that has gripped so many other towns and cities in Namibia to take hold in Swakopmund,” the chairperson expressed.
The municipality has also boosted the road maintenance budget with an extra N.dollars 34.6 million for the current financial year.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency