The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Poverty Eradication, Labour and Industrial Relations held a public hearing in Windhoek to examine findings from oversight visits to government-funded projects in the Kunene, Kavango East and Ohangwena regions.
The chairperson of the committee, Justina Jonas, stated that their mandate is to ensure they are assessing projects, implementing them and ensuring accountability and transparency in using public resources.
She said the hearing follows after the committee's oversight visit to the three regions.
“This region will assess the implementation of government-funded poverty reduction projects administered by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare.”
Kunene Chief Regional Officer George Kamseb noted that the inability to retain employees in rural communities is affecting the implementation of government policies, despite good intentions and existing legislation.
He noted that government employees often leave their stations after only a few months, seeking better living and working conditions elsewhere.
“One of the biggest challenges that we have in our region is the issue of staff turnover. Sometimes you will appoint a person in Okakwati, but because of the lack of accommodation, after just a few months that person will be moving somewhere else.”
The Ministry's Deputy Director for Kunene, Connie Manghono said that there are community social programmes which target the marginalised communities as well as early childhood development programmes.
“We have comprehensive social safety nets which cover the state grants, we have the child care and protection services that deal with children that are under the age of 18 years and gender equality and women's empowerment programmes.”
The committees' Deputy Chairperson, Salomon April, said there should be greater concentration on specific projects and constituencies instead of spreading resources across numerous ministerial projects
This will allow for meaningful and visible impact rather than spreading resources across many areas without achieving the results communities expect.
He further questioned the N$74,000 earmarked for seven constituencies for development projects and the impact it will make on ordinary citizens.