The Parliamentary Standing Committee on International Relations, Defence, and Security, chaired by MP James Uerikua, concluded its stakeholder consultation tour in the Erongo Region on Friday.

The week-long engagement with the security cluster highlighted an urgent need for resource allocation to patrol Namibia's maritime territory, due to the discovery of oil and rising incidents of illegal fishing, especially near the Namibia-Angolan border. 

The consultations also revealed a necessity to establish naval calling stations in strategic locations such as Lüderitz and Cape Fria, given the rise in illicit activities.

"Our coastline is actually 200 nautical miles in terms of the extension into the ocean; now that coastline alone, in terms of manning it, guarding it, and patrolling it. The naval base that we have is only limited to Walvis Bay. Secondly, another avenue—when you look at it, it's only from the Zambezi Region, but at all the other points, the northern part of Namibia, between Angola and Namibia, nothing is taking place as far as monitoring and patrolling are concerned." 

Uerikua called attention to the need to allocate sufficient resources to recruit additional personnel to strengthen national defences.

"Defence force, we need to strengthen our defence capability. Our patrol vessel, the biggest that we have, is NS Elephant, an outdated and bought as far back as 2012. Today, when you get into that vessel, it is telling you technologically and everything else. When you look at war, warfare is stating now the geopolitics are changing. We need to strengthen our defence capabilities. We need to invest in our defence capabilities. The same applies to the police. The police need to be strengthened. In terms of now, we are even talking about creating what you call a security cluster village; already, some erven are allocated in some municipalities." 

They also discussed accommodation for Correctional Service officials and the lack of vehicles, amongst other security matters.