By Staff Reporter
By Alwyn van Zyl & Joep Nel
A voluntary civic clean-up campaign in the heart of Windhoek collapsed and surrendered, following broken promises from the Minister of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture, the Heritage Council, and the City of Windhoek.
The national leadership and the City now stand accused of allowing a festering sore of pollution, filth, and neglect to eat away at the heart of Windhoek — once acclaimed as the “cleanest city” in Africa, if not in the world.
Various voluntary groups are fighting a losing battle against the rising apathy of government institutions and the political window-dressing and posturing in the National Assembly.
The premises of the National Museum in the heart of Windhoek is a rubbish dump, barely 100 metres from the Old State House, on the route taken by thousands of tourists making their way from the Independence Museum and Christus Kirche, past the Parliament Gardens and State House, toward the National Art Gallery and Scientific Society — both especially admired for their old-style villa architecture.
Despite promises from the now-Minister of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture, Sanet Steenkamp, and the veteran Executive Director before her promotion, that the site would be cleaned and maintained, no meaningful action has been taken. The volunteers’ clean-up effort was soon undermined when illegal dumping and vagrancy resumed, forcing the group to abandon their efforts in frustration.
The quarters of Vice-President Lucia Witbooi — who, astonishingly, recently had to launch a clean-up campaign of her own State House property — are barely 100 metres from the national embarrassment that remains unattended. This site has now also been abandoned by well-meaning but mostly ignored civic initiatives since February.
Despite public outcry about open spaces and some of Namibia’s iconic tourism destinations in the Namib Desert and Etosha National Park, and repeated assurances from senior officials of the Ministry of Education, NWR, and the Heritage Council, the National Museum of Namibia remains in a shameful state of neglect, a full five months after citizens tried to take matters into their own hands.
On Sunday, 2 February 2025, a group of concerned volunteers gathered to clean up the dilapidated surroundings of the Owela Museum in Windhoek’s central business district. Their efforts followed widespread disgust over the museum’s condition, which was littered with refuse, damaged infrastructure, and occupied by vagrants, all directly on the doorstep of now-President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah. https://www.facebook.com/share/1B7K1sNySu/
As of today, 4 July 2025, new video footage shows the museum’s entrance still strewn with rubbish, its windows shattered, and the surrounding area left in disrepair. No progress has been made, and none of the commitments made earlier this year have been honoured. One of the lasting images is an empty bag that once contained a laptop — a stark confirmation of the crime hotspot next to the magistrate’s court, despite a near-permanent police and security presence.
In a statement dated 22 January 2025, the Ministry pledged to “urgently implement a clean-up campaign on the Owela Museum premises” and promised that it would “consistently maintain cleanliness at the Museum until renovations are concluded.” Yet, there is no sign of any clean-up or consistent maintenance.
What was once a national heritage site and symbol of pride is now little more than a monument to official neglect and indifference.
This time around, the Ministry of Education, the Heritage Council, and the City of Windhoek were not asked for comment — as the usual “we will act and investigate” responses have been exposed as political theatre.
Ironically, the museum is also just 100 metres from the National Theatre on Windhoek’s once-iconic tourist route.