Africa-Press – Namibia. Lylie Joel
KAPAKO – Operations at Kapako Combined School have for the past three weeks been affected by a water crisis, which has seen learners being released from school around 10h00 every day.
The water crisis, caused by a faulty borehole, has affected the wider community, amongst others the local clinic, which now sources water from the river for drinking and patient care.
Community spokesperson Abraham Mulekesa said the community formally appealed for urgent intervention, noting risks to academic performance and health concerns.
“We are tired. We want a solution,” he said.
Kapako Combined School principal Zefania Siwoko confirmed the crisis and early release of learners, saying the education ministry has intermittently supported the school via payments to the community borehole committee and water deliveries.
It is pursuing a long-term plan for a dedicated school borehole.
However, outages continue “here and there,” with recent inspections by the directorate and ministry teams to replace faulty elements and restore supply.
At the clinic, registered nurse Sem Tetera said they rely on water delivered in containers and sometimes sourced from nearby points, using the same water for toilets and preparing patient medications.
Drinking water is occasionally fetched from the council office, which itself recently suffered an outage linked to cable theft.
“Since January, we have not used water from the tap,” Tetera said.
The vice chairperson of the local development community committee, Christina Haimbodi said learners use the bushes to relieve themselves and do not wash their hands afterwards.
She called on the education ministry and other stakeholders to find a permanent solution.
Community member Jakobus Hausiku also appealed for presidential and ministerial intervention, warning that river water is unsafe and that residents fear crocodiles and hippos when fetching water. Kapako councillor Augustinus Kupembona said he had not met the school leadership nor been briefed on the school’s water issue, but is aware of constituency office outages due to electrical cable theft affecting the local borehole.
He said his office will raise the matter with the Kavango West Regional Council and the Directorate of Education.
Approached for comment, Kavango West Regional Council spokesperson Matheus Hamutenya said the water outage is due to a faulty 2.2 kW control box that required replacement.
The unit was out of stock in Rundu and has been ordered from Windhoek.
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