When I drove along the stretch from Ondangwa to Okahao in 1992, not long after independence, I took this photo of the two-laned cement road. Thirty years later I took another photo of the good tarred road it had become in the intervening years.
Shortly after independence there was a huge effort from government to improve the road network in the North. The main roads were tarred, linking Ruacana to Oshivelo, but only a few of the side roads were tarred and most often they were sandy tracks. Under the guidance of Dr Klaus Dierks, a civil engineer and the deputy transport minister at the time, the first phase of road improvements began. Initially this was in the form of a two-way cement slab, as was the case on the road between Ondangwa/Omuthiya and Okahau. This quick solution was later improved upon as the roads were gradually tarred. Today Namibia has a good network of both tar and gravel roads, making travel for both locals and tourists a breeze.
Once the roads had been improved, the infrastructure around them also improved and development followed. Shops, shebeens, settlements and power lines sprung up, and in more recent years cellphone towers. The North has over the years become a vibrant economic hub.
In 1992 Dierks wrote that ‘Namibia has more kilometres of road per head of population than any other country in southern Africa’. After Namibian independence he deduced that the north-south routes that were predominantly in use pre-independence needed to be complemented by east-to-west transport corridors.
Namibian roads have had a long history. The first trade routes were already established in the 13th century. In the second half of the 18th century Oorlam communities, explorers and traders began to enter and travel through the country and the ox-wagon was the main mode of transport.
The Bay Road, which ran from Bethanie to Angra Pequeña (today’s Lüderitz), was the first documented road to be built. It was constructed between 1814 and 1820. The road built by Jonker Afrikaner through the Auas Mountains in 1842 was the next road to be documented. This was followed by the building of the Bay Road from Windhoek to Walvis Bay in 1843/44.
By the middle of the 19th century there was a well-developed network of ox-wagon roads in the southern and central sections of the country. This can be seen in the ‘Original map of Great Namaqualand and Damaraland’ compiled by Theophilus Hahn in 1879. During the German era beginning in the late 1800s there was an increase in east to west roads and roads running from the Swakop River to the northern areas.
When rinderpest decimated the country’s oxen in 1897, ox-wagon transport came to a standstill and the supply line collapsed. The need for alternative transport prompted the construction of the railway.
World War One ushered in the motorised age. In the wake of the war, during the years 1930 to 1934, the economic depression and a drought put a halt to any further development. And although very few roads were built in the years between 1937 and 1945, 23 bridges were constructed.
More technical expertise was available after World War Two, enabling detailed surveys. This marked the beginning of extensive road building activities. Construction of the first surfaced road in Namibia began in 1956 – it was from Windhoek to Brakwater.
From 1952 to 1986 the network of roads through the country increased from 10 000km to 41 572km. It would continue to improve after Namibian independence in 1990, becoming one of the best road networks in Africa.
(Reference: Dr Klaus Dierks, Namibian Roads in History – from the 13th century till today; 1992)
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