Kinney Ndopu
KATIMA MULILO – The annual week-long regional governors’ forum kicked off in Katima Mulilo in the Zambezi region on Monday.
Outlining the objectives and initiating the purposes of the strategic regional governors’ forum, the chairperson of the forum, Khomas governor Laura McLeod-Katjirua, said the forum aims to discuss issues affecting them in their respective regions.
‘’We have created this platform to take stock and to share our common challenging realities, experiences, and constraints in the overall execution of our given mandate, to reflect on all the possible available negative and positive modalities that influence our performance in our common desire to increase our operational efficiency as an important governing organ of the State.
To review and evaluate our institutional capacity to adapt or develop plans to become more efficient, to maximise our strength and to find the most effective direct path toward achieving any objective in our future inventions’’ said McLeod-Katjirua.
Urban and Rural Development Minister Erastus Uutoni, who officially opened the strategic session, reiterated that governors are the link between the local community and central government – as such, they should have the interest of the people at heart.
“Our actions of regional leadership must be inclusive and people-centred. This, among others, must mean as leadership we must periodically consult with and obtain the views and consensus of and also involve the community in the planning and implementation of development initiatives that affect and/or are meant to benefit them,” said Uutoni.
He further said, “I strongly believe the challenges of land, sanitation and housing, and the worrisome phenomenon of informal settlements can be addressed if there is the unity of purpose, partnership and collaboration between the government at all levels, public institutions, the private sector and the community”.
The five-day forum, which will end on Friday, has brought together all the country’s 14 regional governors.
- Kinney Ndopu is an intern at the Ministry of Information Zambezi regional office