Matheus Hamutenya
Keetmanshoop-//Kharas Regional Council chairperson Jan Scholtz says the long-standing twinning agreement with the Northern Cape provincial government in South Africa should yield tangible results.
Scholtz told New Era he would soon lead a delegation of regional councillors to Kimberley, South Africa for a three-day visit, where the two parties will review the progress made over the years.
He said although the agreement has been in existence for many years, not much have come from the Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties and he hopes the planned meeting will map a way forward on how the two parties can reap more fruits.
He said the meeting will not only present a good platform to assess progress on the agreement, but also come up with an action plan to ensure the lives of people of the region are improved, which he said will give real meaning to the agreement.
“Maybe we have moved at a slow pace in the past, but it is better than standing still. We are now really trying to make this agreement meaningful to both parties and we must now talk of implementation and move forward,” he said.
He noted the agreement has so far mostly benefited the education sector, with exchange programmes facilitated between //Kharas Region and Northern Cape Province, but he is confident this can be extended to other sectors, such as agriculture and tourism.
“This agreement has many sectors of collaboration and it is now up to us to identify projects that our counterparts can assist us with technical know-how, which will then create jobs for our people,” he argued.
Scholtz said it took a lot of resources to keep the agreement alive over the years and it was now time to make sure that the input and the output is on par. The delegation left for South Africa yesterday and is expected to be back by Friday.