National News

Allexer Namundjembo The City of Windhoek says the lack of dedicated national funding remains the main barrier to expanding and improving municipal bus services.  The municipality raised concerns over transport shortages and damaged bus stop shelters. Responding to questions from the Windhoek Observer on Tuesday, city spokesperson Lydia Amutenya said public transport is an essential social service but operates without support from the national social budget. “While public transport is widely recognised as an essential social service, it is currently still not supported by any dedicated funding allocation from the national social budget as should be the case,” Amutenya said. …

Justicia Shipena A High Court review case in which the fishrot accused are challenging the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) investigations remains delayed.  This comes as the court is still waiting for a review record needed for the matter to move forward. The delay has prevented respondents from filing their answering affidavits and has stalled further progress in the case.  The issue came before deputy judge president Hannelie Prinsloo during a status hearing on Tuesday, following a joint status report dated 16 December 2025. In the report, the accused and several state institutions and private entities told the court that only some…

Justicia Shipena  Seventeen borehole sites across Namibia have been equipped with water softening and treatment systems, improving access to safe drinking water for rural communities. This is through a programme that rolled out the systems in several regions affected by high groundwater salinity by the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF), in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform.  EIF on Tuesday announced that it has completed the four-year programme.  The programme began in January 2023 to address long-standing water quality problems in Namibia’s arid and semi-arid areas. It grew from an EIF-led innovation and pilot…

Justicia Shipena Workers at the Northern Regional Electricity Distributor (Nored) will go on strike from Friday.  This is after six years without any wage increase, following the completion of all legal labour processes. The Mineworkers Union of Namibia (MUN) said Nored employees have not received salary adjustments despite repeated engagements through recognised union structures.  The union said workers have now exercised their constitutional right to strike. MUN general secretary George Ampweya said the union views Nored's conduct as unfair, particularly in how resources are allocated. “The Union views this as fundamentally unfair and indicative of misplaced priorities, especially in circumstances…

Justicia Shipena  Modern couples are increasingly drawn to the spectacle of weddings rather than the substance of marriage, leaving many unprepared for the realities of married life, says relationship mechanic Ngamane Karuaihe-Upi. Karuaihe-Upi said people marry for many reasons beyond religion and that pretending otherwise distorts the conversation around divorce.  “Not everyone gets married because God said so. People get married because they are lonely, because of desire, because culture says so, or because of pressure linked to age," he told the Windhoek Observer on Monday.  “People get drunk on the excitement of looking good and being celebrated,” he said.…

Justicia Shipena  “Why am I not legally represented as a former minister of state? What I would like to know, and this needs to be recorded, is why the state has money to give to prosecutors but not to us?” These were the questions raised by former justice minister and fishrot accused Sacky Shanghala on Monday in the Windhoek High Court as the fishrot matter came before court for a hearing on the commencement of the trial. Shanghala told the court that there was unequal treatment between the prosecution and the accused, saying funds were available for state prosecutors while…

Allexer Namundjembo Construction of a school hall at Omuthiya Iipundi Senior Secondary School in Omuthiya, Oshikoto region, remains incomplete more than seven years after the project was first introduced. The project, which formally began in 2020, was meant to provide the school with a hall for assemblies, meetings and other activities.  To date, only the foundation has been laid. Former learners say pupils were required to contribute financially towards the construction, despite the project still standing unfinished years later. “We contributed towards the construction of the hall. We thought it would have been completed by now, especially since the school…

Renthia Kaimbi The Swakopmund municipality has approved the donation of 165 residential erven to listed beneficiaries in the DRC extensions 27, 29 and 30. The decision was ratified at a council meeting on 24 November 2025 and forms part of the municipality’s efforts to secure property rights for residents. The approval follows an earlier process in April 2023, when 805 ownership certificates were handed over to DRC residents.  That handover gave residents legal recognition of their properties, allowing them to open municipal utility accounts and build permanent structures.  It also placed an obligation on owners to pay municipal rates and…