JOHANNESBURG – Namibian parliamentarian Arnold Tjihuiko yesterday opposed the Pan-African Parliament’s decision to allow members from parliaments in Ebola affected nations to attend its ongoing Fifth Ordinary Session being held in South Africa.
The minority Nudo MP said the situation has caused uneasiness among MPs and resulted in some shying away from the parliamentary chambers.
Several members of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) from Ebola-ravaged countries such as Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Guinea are attending the continental legislature gathering that ends next week.
“We did not expect members from the highly affected countries to pitch, but to our surprise they have arrived and it has caused insecurity amongst most of those coming from non-affected countries. Evidently enough, the chamber is relatively empty, some people just come in the morning to sign the attendance register and return to their hotels because of fear,” said Tjihuiko.
He says MPs from countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia should have remained in their countries instead of exposing others at the session.
“It is the same with someone who is infected with HIV/AIDS – yet he/she goes around having unprotected sex. You as the one infected should take responsibility to ensure that you do not spread the disease, hence I say that MPs from affected states should have done the honourable thing and stayed in their countries,” he said.
“It is not that we do not want them here, but it is better to fight the disease in a small concentrated area rather than exporting it to the whole of Africa. It is better to scale down movement so that we can fight the disease,” claimed the MP.
“The entire Africa cannot stop because of three or four countries, but this is a very unfortunate situation,” he said.
Tjihuiko also strongly opposed the World Health Organization (WHO) and African Union (AU) decision urging all countries to lift travel bans.
“This decision is rather unfortunate – we are willing to accommodate the right of movement of people yet we overlook the consequences it could have on the entire continent. The AU is just talking and passing resolutions without doing anything tangible such as supporting affected countries with monetary resources,” said a worried Tjihuiko.
“Apart from Namibia and a few other countries, most countries did not even donate money towards the affected nations. It tells you that most countries are not willing to provide assistance yet they are willing to allow people to run around,” he said.
With most countries having installed scanners at the main entry points to detect immigrants who might be infected, he has his reservations about this method.
“The scanner can only detect people who are already infected. Remember that it takes 21 days for the disease to show, but during that period how many people has the infected person already come into contact with. In this case, if I contract the virus now, I would go home and infect my family, the village where I come from and eventually the whole country. Therefore the scanners are not the answer,” he said.
With Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) member states having stopped their parliamentary activities following the Ebola outbreak, Tjihuiko said postponing the current PAP session would not have impacted on operations.
“They stop their activities that side because of Ebola, yet we allow these very same people to come to our region for meetings, this is very contradicting. It just shows how irresponsible we can sometimes be in southern Africa,” he said.
The Namibian delegation in attendance include Pan-African Parliament Third Vice President and Deputy Speaker of the Namibia National Assembly Loide Kasingo, Professor Peter Katjavivi, Arnold Tjihuiko, Bernard Sibalatani and Evelyn Nawases-Tayele.