Rundu association promises loans to vendors
RUNDU – The Rundu Concerned Citizens Association (RCCA) leadership has promised it will establish a mayor’s development fund that will seek to provide soft loans to street vendors and other small enterprises to expand their business.
RCCA has fielded candidates to participate in next week’s local authority elections and held a campaign event at the town at the weekend. During the rally, RCCA chairperson Reginald Ndara said once they take over the leadership and management of the Rundu Town Council, they will also introduce policies and regulations on land management to address poor land delivery.
“We are going to construct affordable houses for residents of the town depending on their income and we shall work closely with the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia by availing land to the federation for free of charge to enable the members of the federation to build their own houses,” he said.
The RCCA also said, once elected, they will create profound financial policies and regulations to control the resources at the local authority. “We shall strive to deliver quality municipal services to the residents of Rundu as well as empower women and youth groups to eradicate the high unemployment rate and poverty among the designated groups,” he added.
Ndara also said that he believes that locally based civic associations in Namibia can play a significant role in bringing socio-economic development to the residents of their towns.
“Political parties should leave local authority affairs to the non-political pressure groups to govern the affairs of their towns and cities, political parties should focus on regional and national affairs,” he said. Therefore, he said, this should be a loud message to the governing party to leave the local authority affairs to the non-political pressure groups. Ndara, in addition, stated the fact that some political leaders resigned from Swapo to form ratepayers’ associations was an indication that the ruling party has failed to bring tangible development to the local citizens.
He called on local associations to work together in pursuit of service delivery to residents.
“We need each other to exchange or share expertise, skills and experiences. It is very important for locally based associations to work together to bring total development to the towns and cities,” he said. “I would like to appeal to all members of RCCA to refrain from any intimidating actions and to respect the code of conduct as stipulated by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN). Our time has come, let us go and campaign seriously, there are only a few days left before the election, let us make sure that all residents of Rundu get our message and convince them to go and vote for RCCA to take over the leadership and management of Rundu.”