Khorixas residents face serious food insecurity and the regional council needs assistance to provide food to the needy. This was said by the administrative officer at the Khorixas Constituency sub-office, Charlton Richter in an interview with NAMPA recently. He said although residents receive food parcels from the government’s food bank programme, not every household in the town qualifies to be beneficiaries due to the selection criteria of the programme. He noted that the programme is unable to sustain every poor and vulnerable resident and only caters for the most vulnerable and most needy. “The survival of the community is affected by unemployment. The community is poor. I would like to call upon the business community to start donating some items that can be distributed through the regional council to the needy residents,” said Richter. Approximately 180 households are registered under the local authority boundary of Khorixas as Food Bank beneficiaries. Richter added that many people of the community are living below the poverty line, hence the need for more food to address food insecurity. Richter said the constituency office is also aware of complaints that some of the Food Bank beneficiaries are selling their food parcels in order to buy alcohol. “We are aware of the complaints but there is still no proof. However, I would like to urge the community to refrain from such illegal practices. If any of the beneficiaries are found selling these parcels their names will be removed from the programme with immediate effect,” he warned. -NAMPA