GOBABIS: The ambitious Build-Together Programme has come to a screeching halt in the Omaheke Region as the regional council struggles to sustain the highly labour-intensive project.

More than half of the houses envisaged under the programme have been standing incomplete for years now, after the appointed contractors failed to honour their obligations of completing the houses.

A number of such houses are at Gobabis, Epukiro and Aminuis, where the programme has mainly failed to progress beyond window height for most of these houses.

The situation has forced hundreds of would-be house owners under the Build-Together programme to join private housing savings schemes in efforts to put proper roofs over their heads.

The Omaheke Regional Council, under whose direction the programme was decentralised, had on numerous occasions admitted the slow pace of the programme, putting the blame largely on inexperienced contractors who had been awarded construction tenders.

Old Mutual Namibia yesterday handed over a unit trust investment to the value of N.dollars 10 000 to Namibia’s Paralympics’ gold and silver medallist Johanna Benson.

Old Mutual Namibia’s Chief Executive Officer for Operations, Sackaria Nghikembwa handed the investment to the gold medallist in the presence of senior officials of the Ministry of Youth, National Service, Sports and Culture at the insurance company’s head office here.

Unit trusts are professionally managed funds which allow one to invest in financial markets, together with other investors, through a management company.

He noted that as they celebrate Benson’s achievement, Old Mutual Namibia decided to offer her a unit trust investment to the total value of N.dollars 10 000.

Nghikembwa also announced that the management of Old Mutual Namibia will avail a financial advisor to the young Benson and her family in order to help the gold medallist to use her funds wisely, once they conclude the ongoing negotiations with the Namibian Government.