The long-awaited completion of the new Namibian Police Forensic Science Institute facility is progressing well and is expected to be completed soon.
This was confirmed by home affairs, immigration and safety and security minister Frans Kapofi in the National Assembly this Wednesday.
The ministry was allocated an amount of N$5.4 billion from the N$72.8 billion national budget tabled by finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi in parliament recently.
“The new facility will allow the police to properly secure evidence for court cases and investigations and the rate at which such cases can be finalised will increase dramatically,” Kapofi said.
Kapofi says the forensic services programme run by police centres provides scientific services to multi-disciplinary entities that require scientific solutions to crime-related problems.
He said the programme covers a range of scientific skills like human and documents examination, analytical chemistry, explosives analysis and blood analysis.
“The Namibian Police Forensic Science Institute is the custodian of these activities and its services are essential in crime analysis; hence, it requires adequate resources in order to provide answers to, among others, complex murder and rape cases,” he told MPs.
Despite human resource and budgetary constraints and a sub-optimal laboratory building, Kapofi said the chemistry, genetics, physics and questioned documents division of the Namibian Police Forensic Science Institute (NPFSI) completed 4 120
cases.
Among those completed Kapofi said are drug abuse, forensic fire examination, blood alcohol analysis, digital forensics, electronic evidence, ballistics, trace evidence, wildlife forensics and forensic handwriting analysis among many others.
Also, he said the Forensic Pathology Services performed 5 328 medico-legal examinations nationwide for the year under review.
Similarly, he said the Scene of Crime Division completed 65 184 cases nationwide for the year under review, consisting of crime scene photos taken, fingerprint comparisons, footprint castings, photo plans compilation, fingerprint sets classified and latent prints processed.
Furthermore, Kapofi says the ministry is aware that there are still many people without documents such as national identification documents and the process to provide such documentation is well underway.
“It is essential for one to have a documented identity to access other government and private services. I have distributed a two-page flyer with detailed information with regards to this vote,” he told MPs.