The |Khomas Regional Council has expressed satisfaction following a one-day benchmarking exercise in the Ohangwena Region.
The strategic visit, which took place on Monday, aimed to foster knowledge sharing, exchange regional experiences, and strengthen administrative collaboration between the two councils.
|Khomas Regional Council Chief Regional Officer Clement Mafwila said the delegation visited Ohangwena to learn how the region executes its mandate in the planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects.
Mafwila said the Ohangwena Regional Council is leading in financial management, transparency and good governance of public accounts.
He noted that the council received clean audit opinions for two consecutive financial years, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, which prompted |Khomas Regional Council to select Ohangwena as a benchmarking partner.
"The second aspect would be on financial management. To say, 'Now how do you manage these public funds?' As you know, most of the regional councils have a challenge; many cannot account for the money, some run out of the office, nobody can explain what happened, and people are looking at us. We also maybe from Ohangwena. What is that? You have done that, and we can still learn from you."
Ohangwena Regional Council Chief Regional Officer Fillipus Shilongo said it took the regional council almost 29 years to achieve a clean audit opinion, due to improved financial prudence.
"And we say aim to have a clean audit opinion, and we have successfully done that, so however, we still are not relaxed. Part of the question is what strategy we have in place. I am sure the colleagues will highlight and say we also have strategies in terms of procurement, because if we are not careful in terms of procurement, you can raise a lot of questions and can have discrimination or adverse outcomes. But if you put your procurement right, even this public account, the committee cannot come here."
The delegation also visited several development projects, both government and privately owned.
Among them were Oikango Piggery at Enyana Village and the Omauni Woodwork Enterprise in the Okongo Constituency.