The Minister of Works and Transport, John Mutorwa, says public policy documents are not confidential and should be made available to the public.
Mutorwa was speaking at Nkurenkuru when he handed over the ministry's maintenance functions to the Kavango West Regional Council.
Mutorwa stressed that public policy documents should be shared with the people so that everyone understands the functions of the council.
"Public documents like the constitution of the country, like this law, the decentralisation enabling act, and any other law that is made in the Parliament, or resolutions, resolutions by the regional council, including this agreement that we are going to sign, are public documents; they are not secret documents. So I want to warn you because that is where we are having problems. There's nothing secret about this thing; in fact, for the implementers, including the politicians, this document must be on your table."
It has been 11 years now since the Kavango Region was divided into two, and Kavango West still depends on Kavango East for most of its activities.
The Chairperson of the Kavango West Regional Council, Joseph Sikongo, commended the ministry for decentralising some of its functions.
He assured the Ministry that the council would use every material entrusted to them for the development of the region.
"Be rest assured that Kavango West Region Council is not going to disappoint you in this case. I remember towards the beginning of this particular year we convened a general staff meeting where I told all officials serving the central government at Kavango West Region Council or in Kavango region, particularly Kavango West and I told them and I was very frank and even today I am going, to be frank with them, whoever is to be decentralised to the Regional council make sure the badge that was allocated to you it must be utilised within this region if a portion of a cent is sent back as per treasury instruction just because the head of directorate miss behave he will follow the money if he will not follow the money he will receive a forceful later to leave this particular region because disappointing us means we disappoint central government."
Sikongo also assured the Minister that the agreement signed will be available to all eight constituencies in the region for easy public access.
The Minister of Urban and Rural Development, Erastus Uutoni, reminded the Council of its responsibility towards its maintenance functions.
Uutoni said his office will only help when and where it is necessary.
"We should not expect the Ministry of Works to come and do this work; of course, we can talk to them, but it's our responsibility now, and we want to see Kavango West Region be a nice region with shining infrastructure. We do not want to hear that things are collapsing because of what but you are here, of course, we will try our level best through our ministry in terms of resources to send the little that is there, and of course, the Ministry of Works will also do their best to see how they can also allocate little through their budget in terms of maintenance, but your department responsible for maintenance should also be serious, and when we visit here we will be attracted and we would want to stay here and we don't want to be here and then the buildings are just in a decapitated state, so please take care of this."
The handover of functions was signed by the Ministers of Works and Transport, Mutorwa, and Urban and Rural Development, Uutoni, as well as Sikongo, the Chairperson of the Kavango West Regional Council.