Swakopmund interchange-bridge now officially open

Staff Reporter

The coast’s road transport infrastructure reached an historic milestone on Wednesday, with the official opening of the Swakopmund-Walvis Bay dual carriage way (MR44 behind the dune belt), the Swakopmund interchange bridge on the B2 highway as well as the newly constructed Swakopmund-Henties Bay road.

The opening of the two roads and the interchange bridge follows after several years of construction work and several billion Namibian Dollar pumped into the projects. For both the Ministry of Works and Transport and the Roads Authority (RA) the official opening comes as a major moment of pride and accomplishment.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of RA, Conrad Lutombi, the Swakopmund-Walvis Bay dual carriage only has another 15km of construc-tion to complete. That is the last stretch of road before the dual carriage way connects with the C14 (Airport Road) near Walvis Bay.

The Swakopmund-Henties Bay road is also near-ingcompletion with some 20km remaining.

Several delegates however, who attended the ope-ning were sceptic of the opening ceremony taking place before the projects were fully completed. Some ,attributed that to political window dressing by the Swapo-led Namibian Government so close before the November 25th regional councils and local authority elections.

Adding motorists are using these roads daily, and that a proper opening later next year would have been more suitable.

“We could have had an official opening of the completed roads some time next year, but the event was rescheduled to this week, for political reasons I guess”, one delegate speculated on the side line when asked about the timing of the opening. He said more shared his opinion and that it actually degrades the grand scale of these projects as well as the billions of taxpayers’ funds that went into these projects.

With politics aside, he explained once all road infra-structure projects are completed, the Erongo Region will be boasting an advanced road transport network. The crown jewel would be the uninterrupted blacktop road link from Walvis Bay to Ruacana through Western Namibia (Walvis Bay-Henties Bay-Uis-Khorixas-Kamanjab–Ruacana).