Chief Executive Officer of the Rehoboth Town Council, Simeon Kanime, has urged residents to be patient while the council is in the process of procuring a system box to repair the town’s only traffic lights, which are broken.

The traffic lights that have been out of commission for over a month are located on Bahnhof Street in the town centre.

Kanime told Nampa on Monday the council is aware of the broken traffic lights and has been working to find a solution, which he said is due to a broken system box after the council brought in a service provider from Windhoek to inspect the situation and they indicated that the system box was broken and needed to be replaced completely.

“The traffic lights have been out of commission for about a month. However, as soon as it was brought to the council’s attention that the traffic lights were not working, we contacted the service provider who normally maintains the traffic lights. They informed us that it needed to be replaced, and we are currently in the process of acquiring it,” he stated.

Kanime further said based on the recommendation, the council has ordered a new system box from South Africa, as this system box is not available in Namibia, and is estimated to cost around N.dollars 65 000.

“Once that arrives in Namibia, the system box will be installed, and the traffic lights will be operational again,” he said.

A few residents took to social media to enquire about the situation on a Facebook group that allows residents in the town to air grievances, warn fellow residents of alarming incidents, and also serves as a platform where some residents choose to discuss annoying and troubling issues in the town.

One resident stated that because the traffic lights are out, a few drivers appear to be confused about how a four-way stop works and that it has become an annoyance.

Kanime responded to these claims by saying he saw the reports on social media and asked the chief electrical officer to send a WhatsApp voice note informing residents of the situation and how council was busy developing solutions to the problem.

“That particular intersection is not too congested for a traffic official to be stationed there. The four-way junction, on the other hand, appears to work for all of us. As a result, I urge drivers and pedestrians to be patient with us; we regret that this is the case in our town,” he stated.

Kanime said the council hopes to have the traffic lights operational again by 16 June 2022.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency