WINDHOEK – First Lady Penehupifo Pohamba has, for the first time, made a public statement on her plans following March 2015, when President Hifikepunye Pohamba’s term of office ends.
Besides managing her own charity organisation, she is also looking forward to spending quality time with the family away from the glare of public scrutiny. “I am looking forward to spending enough time with my family, cooking and serving my husband delicious meals, which I know he enjoys,” Madam Pohamba told Prime Minister Dr Hage Geingob and his deputy Marco Hausiku who were at State House for a briefing on the activities of the Office of the First Lady. Madam Pohamba is the patron of maternal and child health in Namibia and has dedicated part of her time to the running of her charity organisation – Organization for the Empowerment of Widows/Widowers and Orphans of HIV and AIDS in Namibia (OEWONA). The first lady has also served as the president of the Organisation of the African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA). She says between now and March 2015, she will continue to be a committed member of OAFLA and implement its agenda and attend its meetings to ensure that she “leaves a functional OAFLA local chapter behind,” and would be “very happy to coach and orientate our new prospective First Lady of Namibia to continue where I left of.”
One of her wishes is to at least complete the construction of more maternal shelters, at least in four more regions, before her husband’s term in office comes to end. For now she is concentrating on hosting the 8th ‘Stop Cervical, Breast and Prostate Cancer in Africa Conference’ scheduled for July 21-22, 2014. Last year the conference in Maputo, Mozambique, appointed Namibia as the host country with Madam Pohamba the chairperson until the next conference in July 2015.
As president of OAFLA she has played a lead role in expanding effective strategies for the elimination of new HIV infections and the reduction of maternal and child mortality in Africa. She has also improved effective communication, advocacy, resource mobilisation and partnership with the revitilisation of OAFLA membership. “I scored achievements, especially in these priority areas and I am delighted to say that I have handed over the office to the First Lady of the Republic of Chad, with proud results, as well as audited financial statements,” she said. However, she admitted that she spend most of the first year of her presidency sorting out inherited problems. “I found some unfinished business in the OAFLA office such accounting for funds donated by UNAIDS for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) campaigns that were not utilised. We spend quite large amounts of time during the first year in office, identifying, locating and disbursing these funds appropriately and submitting reports,” she said.
By Fifi Rhodes