Transport department seeks N$3,2b parliament approval

…works department wants N$789m

The Department of Transport in the Ministry of Works and Transport wants parliament to approve a budget of N$3,2 billion for the 2024/25 financial year.

Delivering a motivation statement in the National Assembly on Thursday, works and transport minister John Mutorwa said the department has six programmes to which the budget will be allocated.

These include infrastructure development, roads infrastructure, maritime infrastructure development, airport infrastructure, railway network development and public works and public property management.

Other functions include the construction, rehabilitation and upgrading of government garages nationwide.

There are approximately 11 government garages across Namibia.

According to Mutorwa, the specific transport projects, with their proposed and estimated funding, are articulated in the development programme’s medium-term expenditure framework of 2024/25-2026/27, from page 340 to page 396.

“I implore and kindly request my colleagues, all the honourable members of the National Assembly to pay attention to projects as listed on those mentioned pages, particularly during the committee stage of consideration and discussion,” Mutorwa said.

He added that the construction of roads in Namibia was never cheap, is not cheap now and will never be cheap.

“It is the government’s firm and principled belief that roads must facilitate social-economic-cultural-agricultural-trade development. Roads must unite and connect our country to other neighbouring countries and beyond.”

The minister said roads must also connect the country’s regions, towns and farms, and facilitate the free movement of goods, services and people.

“Any development must follow the road and not the road to follow development,” Mutorwa said.

He said there are a number of ongoing and planned road projects in different regions that must not be disrupted or stopped due to funding issues.

WORKS DEPARTMENT WANTS N$789M

On the other hand, the Department of Public Works in the same ministry wants parliament to approve an amount of N$789 million for the 2024/25-2026/27 financial year.

Mutorwa said there are two major programmes that are implemented through the department of public works – information communication technology (ICT) infrastructure expansion and public works and public assets management.

“The ICT infrastructure expansion programmes deal with the upgrading, network and expansion of information technology services both to the ministry’s head office and regional offices,” he said.

Other services provided under these programmes include rehabilitation of infrastructure, extension, upgrading and construction of regional offices, sub-offices and workshops.