WALVIS BAY – National Council vice chairperson Victoria Kauma says parliament needs to do more to safeguard the resources of the country.
Kauma said that it is up to the various parliamentary standing committees to hold the Legislature accountable through its duties.
She was speaking at the official opening of a four-day workshop on Monday, attended by various chairpersons and vice chairpersons of parliamentary committees in Swakopmund.
The workshop is expected to equip chairpersons and vice chairpersons with an understanding of the role of standing committees in government accountability, effective deployment of public consultations and public hearings in bill consultations.
They will also be trained to effectively manage public hearings and oversight activities, while also looking at the relations between chairpersons, committee clerks and the media so that they achieve the desired objective of the standing committees.
According to Kauma, it important that they, as agents of parliament, understand and acquaint themselves with the environment while at the same time work on mobilising the required resources to deliver on critical components of their constitutional mandate.
“We must ensure that government’s implementation activities are not obstructed due to poorly managed or unstructured oversight activities. Thus, I hope this training workshop will give us the needed tools to do our jobs,” she said.
According to her, they need to gain a greater understanding of the fundamental obligations of standing committees as they exercise the intermediation role of establishing accountability among all the stakeholders in the governance space.
Deputy chairperson of the standing committee on agriculture, environment and natural resources Melania Ndjago, also echoed the same sentiments, saying that the standing committees are one of the means that parliament use to hold the government accountable through oversight.
“It means accountability for actions or policies, whereas oversight is about the role of parliament in monitoring and reviewing actions of government. There is an expanded scope of State activities, including bureaucracy, which requires parliaments to be more active in their systematic review to ensure transparency and accountability,” she said.
The workshop is also part of the Implementation Coordination Committee’s annual activity plan for 2022/2023 and has been organised with assistance from the Enhancing Participatory Democracy in Namibia (EPDN) Project.
edeklerk@nepc.com.na