WINDHOEK – Parliamentarians should listen to their constituents and ensure the voices of the ordinary people who voted them into parliament are heard. They should also be able to grasp and analyze the national budget and ensure it caters for the needs of their constituencies.
Special advisor to the Minister of Health Bience Gawanas gave the advice when she addressed the five-day induction workshop for over 100 parliamentarians underway in the city.
Gawanas further urged MPs to look at how they should function and how they should professionally present themselves when elected into parliamentary committees, while on the other hand they should request explanations when the set goals are not met in the national budget.
Service delivery should also encompass substantive equality and address socio-economic and cultural rights such as health, education, housing, sanitation, nutrition and food security, she urged.
New MPs should set targets on Vision 2030, on the National Development Plan (NDP) and on Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), which range from halving extreme levels of poverty and reducing HIV/AIDS to providing universal primary education, indicated Gawanas.
She also expressed concern about widespread service delivery backlogs, weaknesses in communication and accountability systems, skills shortages, misuse of public funds, maladministration, corruption and bad governance, among others.
She said the newly sworn-in MPs of the Sixth Parliament should translate policy into service delivery, which would have a great impact on citizens.
Gawanas stated that parliament must seek to establish a society that is based on democratic values, social justice and respect for human rights while parliament must be dynamic, relevant and effective in the performance of its duties.
“New members took their oath and the hard work now begins as the promises made during elections have to be put into practice through translating policies into service delivery, which should have a great impact on the people. Poverty alleviation, social inequalities and social exclusion should be at the centre of their considerations as well,” she stated.
“Parliament should be a key instrument to ensure transparency and accountability in the delivery of goods and services through site visits, performance reviews of government policies, and making inquiries and recommendations on sectorial issues such as health,” she added.
Furthermore she stated that parliament needs to conduct investigations into the barriers to effective service delivery and use oversight responsibility, legislative leverage and budget reviews to ensure people’s needs are met.
“MPs should have an oversight in specific areas and in their role as parliamentarians oversight does not mean criticism or undermining the executive’s ability to govern but to look at the facts and arrive at a consensus for improvements,” she elaborated.
Furthermore she said there is a need to invest in the research sector to enhance the knowledge capacity of individuals, adding that the country has quite a lot of youths that need internships. She thus appealed to government and private institutions to provide opportunities to individuals.
“Not all MPs have multi-sectorial skills and thus they should use their expertise gained from different institutions before becoming MPs, as a sectorial output approach is necessary to assess service delivery outputs,” she said.