Vice President Lucia Witbooi has urged the Rundu Town Council to urgently attend to issues around ownership documents for a piece of land it had donated to a community initiative.

The land was donated by the local town council to the Centre for the Visually Impaired at Sauyemua; however, no title deed for the land was accorded to it.

The Vice President made the remarks during a visit to the centre as part of her oversight visit to the Kavango East region.  

Witbooi urged the council to attend to the issue, saying the visually impaired community of the centre are part of the Namibian house and they should not be made to feel otherwise.

The vice president stressed that land ownership is important if one wants to bring development to a place. 

"The people that are out there, the NGOs, whoever is sitting with funds there, will be willing to assist and to assist the government, to assist you, and by so doing also assist the government to bring and to develop and to bring in some more facilities, but as much as there is no land ownership, people cannot come in to assist with it; therefore, I ask the town council and the governor, please let us do whatever we can within our mandate within our laws so that the people get the ownership paper. I think next year, the year after, in two years we can see a flourishing centre."

The centre, established in 2008, caters for the visually impaired, where braille classes amongst other skills training are offered.

The patron of the Sauyemwa Centre of the Visually Impaired is Dr. Tauya Muteka.

"The biggest problem that we have, even though what I faced is land ownership, is that the land was handed over to the blind according to the town council. All the time that is what is said, but personally, I can't say I have seen the paper where it is written or given. When they were approached in May this year, they promised that they would provide the paper of ownership in June; it is not done yet."

The Kavango East governor, Hamunyera Hambyuka, during the visit, gave the responsibility to the mayor, Andreas Jikerwa, to follow up on the issue to ensure that the centre gets ownership in the shortest time.

"Rather than for us to wait until next year, can we have it by the end of this month?"