KATIMA MULILO: Vice President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has called for the revival of the Kalimbeza rice project to enhance food security in Namibia.

Envisaged to be the major rice project in the country, the Kalimbeza rice project situated 56 kilometres from Katima Mulilo has not been operational since 2021, amongst others due to broken machinery and a water pump that needs to be replaced.

In an interview with Nampa on the sidelines of her familiarisation visit to the project recently, Nandi-Ndaitwah said it has proven to be effective before and urged the project manager to work with the University of Namibia, which has experience in rice plantations.

‘There’s not much required except replacing some of the broken machines and repairing others. When you’re running a farm and one machine is not working, it makes work ineffective,’ she said.

She advised the project manager to start preparing and put things in place so the project can become operational again by August this year.

The project received an allocation of N.dollars 8 million from the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform.

Meanwhile, President Nangolo Mbumba during his keynote address at the 34th independence celebrations held at Katima Mulilo last week, announced that the government approved the establishment of a sugar plantation at the Kalimbeza project, in addition to a sugar processing plant at Katima Mulilo.

Source: The Namibia Press Agency