Okakarara Constituency Councillor Ramana Mutjavikua has called on the government through the Roads Authority to fast-track phase two of tarring the Okakarara-Okondjatu road.
He said this during an assessment visit to the road works stretching over 100 kilometres to connect the settlement and villages to the main town in the constituency.
Although pleased with progress made, Mutjavikua urged for funding for phase two to be expedited for work to continue uninterrupted, as the rainy season will flood and derail progress made to date.
The road lies in a flood-prone area.
"Considering the quality of the gravel that we needed to use because of any other alternative, I am just afraid that if the period between phase 1, which is the gravelling of the road, and phase 2, which is the laying of the bitumen seal over this road, are not too concurrent, we might want to repeat phase 1 as well because by the time we avail money for phase 2, phase 1 might be dilapidated."
Mutjavikua says the continuous road assessment visits are necessitated for updates, as key routes in the constituency are central to economic and development benefits.
"We are already dreaming of a truck port in Okakarara. Okakarara as a constituency, we are entering or will indulge in biomass utilisation, including charcoal production, which are all export commodities via the coast. So this road will bring our dream just closure to that realisation as we are indulging in a sector that is transport intensive. So our long-term dream is for this initiative to be realised and then for Okakarara to be part of the national road network."
Road works contractor Emil Sakeus says regravelling works on the road are near completion, despite challenges pertaining to water availability in the area.
"We had to do 35 kilometres, and now we have only 9 kilometres to finish, and we finished topping those 9 kilometres already. We just now need to crush the material; after we crush it, we will process it, and then we are done with this part, and then we move to another part of the road."
The route forms part of the 196 kilometre Okahandja-Hochfeld-Otjozondu-Okondjatu road, which will ultimately connect the Omaheke and Otjozondjupa regions and link to the Trans-Zambezi Highway and the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Corridor.