There is no diversion of water in the Kunene River. Neither is there any indication of human related activities that could have aggravated the floods in the north, efundja, surveyors and water officials said this week. “There is no diversion of water whatsoever,” Wolfgang Stehn, a qualified surveyor who works in Angola told the Economist this week. Two weeks ago the Economist reported that the heavy floods in the northern regions were aggravated by the construction of a bridge at Xangongo in Angola.

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Waters and Forestry (MAWF), in response to the article, said such reports were merely rumours.
“Human nature is such that a guilty party is always looked for and often found for natural disasters, and other considerations may have made this allegation convenient,” said Guido van Langenhove from the MAWF.
The rumour was last week brushed aside by President Hifikepunye Pohamba, when asked by the Economist, saying that “government has not picked up any evidence to confirm it”.
The Angolan government is constructing a bridge over the Kunene River, where the contractor is said to have blocked the river about 160 km upstream of the construction site. The reason was to drop the water level within the immediate construction vicinity.
However, this is said to have caused the water to flow backwards inland. Coupled with the unprecedented heavy rains, the diverting and damming of water, much of the water flow went south of Angola, flooding the often dry rivers in northern Namibia.
“It is rather difficult to imagine the size and height of a structure in the Kunene River that would be able to retain the waters of this river and then push them over the watershed,” said van Langenhove, who provided graphs and rainfall patterns to squash the damming rumour.
Pohamba said the government had only been made aware of the collapse of an earth dam in Ondjiva, during the first wave of flood. The dam walls broke and flooded the town of Ondjiva. “[These waters] can easily get into the Oshanas,” said Pohamba, adding that this does not mean that the collapse of the dam contributed to the flood.
Stehn said the construction of the bridge is very minor and there is absolutely no diversion of water.