Three years after capital projects were approved for the Kavango East by Parliament, the Ministry of Industrialisation and Trade still has little to show for it. 

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economics and Public Administration walked away dissatisfied from a recent visit to these sites.

The Standing Committee on Economics and Public Administration inspected three key capital projects under the Industrialisation and Trade Ministry's development budget, running from 2021 to 2024.

The projects in question concern the proposed construction of a garment factory, the development of agroprocessing, and a special industrialisation programme. 

The failure was attributed to the slow procurement process and to the ministry's wanting to attend to one region at a time. 

The committee's chairperson, Elifas Dingara, says parliament approved the proposed plans based on the expectation that the projects would have been completed by the third year.

"We approved it, we did not amend it. So now the period for construction has passed and has ended much this year , so that is why we decided to say now that they said they would build garment factories in nine regions, let's go and see and touch the garment factories. That is what was presented to us, we don't want to ask the ministry other things than what was tabled or presented to parliament. We want to use the writing that the professionals have put together. I am talking about the national planning commission. How many professionals are there? You can't go wrong. The whole ministry of finance—how many professionals are there? It is not possible that what is tabled at parliament could be wrong, it is correct; it cannot be wrong after three years, it was correct at that time, and it should be correct up to now."

The Chairperson of the Kavango East Regional Council, Damian Maghambayi, contended that the projects may have shown better results had inspection been a matter of priority throughout and not left as a last-minute affair.

"We have systems in place where we are supposed to monitor and ensure that government programmes are being executed as planned and approved by parliament. There should be no excuse to say that maybe because of that or this, it was approved. So let me then thank the parliamentary standing committee for all the efforts, and I am sure your report will also reflect on which regions are lacking behind, so that those projects must be implemented as approved and take sector ministries to task."

The Standing Committee undertook the same exercise in the Kavango West, Zambezi, and Otjozondjupa regions.