Kavango East constituency councillor and National Council member Petrus Kavhura has bemoaned the delivery of national documents by the home affairs ministry in his constituency, describing it as “pathetic and unsatisfactory”.
Kavhura made the remarks while contributing to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Immigration, Safety and Security budget motivation in the National Council recently.
“The fact remains that there are still quite a big number of people born and who live in this country without any national documents. The backlog is growing at an alarming speed because young parents without national documents themselves cannot register their children,” he said.
“It is not making sense, and will never make sense for legitimately born Namibians to sit in this country without national documents.”
Kavhura said the situation is worsened by the long distance citizens travel in search of these essential documents.
“The long distance travelled is further worsened by the back and forth movement (in search of relevant required documents), pillar to post process (shifting responsibility and lack of will to assist),” he said.
In the case of Rundu, Kavhura said the regional office where people go for services is always overcrowded and staff members seem to be overworked.
“The work environment is likely to compromise quality and effective service delivery due to overcrowding and pressure,” he told lawmakers.
He said since acquiring national documents for some has become a very difficult and complex exercise, one cannot rule out errors, dishonesty, forgery and fraudulent practices.
This, according to him, has led to scenarios where in one family while the parents are still struggling to obtain the documents, meanwhile among their biological children some have managed to obtain their documents. “Accessing a national document has become a struggle but not an ordinary struggle but a struggle of the survival of the fittest,” he said.
“The point I am putting across here is that the current administrative set-up and arrangements are not responding to the concerns and challenges of national documents seekers,” he added. He said the current arrangement has contributed to many Namibians, mainly the vulnerable (the illiterate, the poor, the disabled, orphans, the elderly and the San and those residing far and deep in the inland) not to have the much needed national documents.
“Now and then people turn to regional councillors for assistance. Obviously this tells you that there is something wrong with the daily administrative routine at home affairs,” he said.
The MP says he is not convinced that government has exhausted all workable ideas, plans and strategies to make issuing of national documents easier for the category of people mentioned above.