By J P Katanga I would like to forward my new year’s greetings to all, may this year be productive and bring us every joy and happiness. The year 2007 has just started in which all of us have to strategically plan our programmes in order to implement them successfully so that at the end of the year we will be able to evaluate what has been achieved or not and why. We remain proud to have elected our President, His Excellency Hifikepunye Pohamba to lead us as the father of the nation. During the previous year, His Excellency the President has been at the forefront to advocate for peace, stability and unity at national and international platforms and worked relentlessly to address the social problems affecting our people. The nation was kept abreast of all presidential activities either on the national broadcaster or in the print and radio media. Certainly, this demonstrates a visionary leader who knows and belongs with his people I wanted to pinpoint the following: Citizens’ Participation in Public Affairs Namibia successfully adopted the decentralization policy to allow people at the grassroots the opportunity to participate in their own decision-making and extend democracy to them as a right based on national ideas and values. Citizens therefore elect their leaders in government to be their aspirations and mouthpiece in matters affecting them. However, communities often experience a lack of commitment from our leaders who often show lack of leadership skills and training, decision-making and problem-solving skills, lack of progress in planning and management and inadequate and under-performance. Let 2007 be the year in which our leaders will interact more frequently with their electorates and create more solid structures where citizens will partake in the planning and management of their regions. This will allow them to show innovation, come up with new ideas and talents and proper skills to uplift their own lives. We also call on our leaders to introduce concrete guidelines and recommendations of planned activities and share same with their communities to be part and parcel of the implementation processes. Ethics and Accountability Corruption has to be dealt with throughout government structures. As a Namibian citizen, I do now know how to speak out when I see corruption cases going dead or being dealt with wrongly. In such instances, those corrupt go free to enjoy the fruits of their activities. Appreciating the efforts of our government to have established the Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate allegations of corruption, there is still great need to audit the management systems of individual government departments and agencies from an anti-corrupt perspective. For example, unlawful tender and procurement processes, misuse and theft of government properties, bribery and excessive travelling and workshop attendance by public officials who spend little time in their offices to perform their official duties. Government must therefore create avenues at all government departments and agencies for citizens to complain freely and effectively. Government departments and agencies should be compelled to run public awareness campaigns on corruption so that we know when and where and with whom to speak out. Better Life for All We all are Namibians and together fought for the independence of Namibia, but it seems our leaders, friends and colleagues have forgotten us. Whatever and how hard we try to uplift our livelihood we can only observe how the gap continues to expand between our highly earning individuals including our leaders and the communities with lower or no income at all. Compatriots, comrades, friends, colleagues we are no strangers to each other. Allow us to sit at the same table and commonly discuss all difficulties that face us due to poverty, unemployment and poor health and education. With these few words I hope our communities will not be afraid but speak out with one voice about whatever affects us. We have elected our leaders to hear us out, if we don’t speak out nothing will be forthcoming. Let us work hard, remain with our morals and principles to respect each other and uphold the laws of the Republic of Namibia.