Nkurenkuru
Kavango West Governor Sirkka Ausiku has called on the political leadership of the region to hit the ground running, saying communities have high expectations of them including herself as the regional governor.
“Let’s develop this new region, there should be no time to relax. Let’s be inclusive and transparent by involving all stakeholders like the traditional leaders, the business people, the youth, women and everybody in the running of our constituencies and town, and let us develop sound monitoring and evaluation systems to know the projects and programmes taking place in our constituencies,” she said.
Ausiku made the call during a meeting last Thursday when she invited the political leadership of Kavango West to prepare as a team to work effectively as leaders.
“I called this meeting because I see the need for us to formally introduce ourselves to one another and strategize on how we can work together as a team to bring development to our new region as per the directive from His Excellency Hage Geingob,” Ausiku told the regional government and local authority councillors at the meeting.
“Our communities have high expectations that we bring services closer to them in the next five years and we cannot afford to fail. As councillors we represent the voices of the poor and the disadvantaged people – we carry their hopes, fears and more importantly their dreams of prosperity. Therefore, let’s pull together in the spirit of harambee,” she said.
“Don’t think when I ask for reports that I’m intervening in your work – my task as a regional governor is to ensure that regional and local authorities, offices, ministries and agencies in the region fully implement programmes and projects in line with budgetary allocations. We need to work together with communities to bring development,” she said.
Ausiku believes that only by working together will they be able to change the status of Kavango West Region being the poorest in the country, adding that the 2011 Poverty Mapping Report of the National Planning Commission should be their point of reference.
She further told the councillors that as a new region they need to have a strategic plan as a guiding document outlining their goals and objectives and how these goals can be achieved.
“I hope our regional council is hard at work to finalise this important document. In addition, we need to have functional structures like regional development committees, village development committees … a regional gender permanent task force and others,” she said.
Ausiku urged councillors to have an open door policy and share information “as information is power” – and according to her Kavango West residents lack information on how to access basic services.
Ausiku said that leaders can only claim to be accountable if the different communities have regular interaction with them on matters affecting their everyday life.
Kavango West is subdivided into eight electoral constituencies and one local authority, the Nkurenkuru Town Council.