OHANGWENA - President Hifikepunye Pohamba said he is pleased by the direction at which the country is moving towards advancement of information technology and information dissemination to the masses.

While officially inaugurating Ohangwena Regional Library at Helao Nafidi last week, Pohamba said Namibia is a member of the global economy, thus, the country cannot talk about Vision 2030 without talking about access to global information. In the same way, Namibia cannot talk about access to information if there is no access to libraries.

“The desired outcome of our Fourth National Development Plan (NDP4), such as the delivery of public services require to a great extent, the availability of reliable information technology. We must therefore harness these technologies and make them part and parcel of our strategies and means toward implementing public policies and delivery of service to our people,” said Pohamba.

He said Namibians where previously denied access to information and education which was part of the colonial government strategies to prevent the black masses from knowing their rights and to ensure that they remain slaves.

According to Pohamba, when he left the country to go into exile in 1964, the whole northern part of the country only had one university graduate, the late Hans Daniel Namuhuya.

“The only kind of education they gave us was how to serve them, how to work in the kitchen and how to carry plates. They did not allow us to study science because they knew that if we are exposed to this, we will demand for our rights -the rights to rule this country,” said Pohamba.

State of art libraries are built in Oshana, Ohangwena and Omaheke regions through the cooperation between the United States of America and the Namibian governments through the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) Namibia).

Apart from the libraries, Pohamba noted that Prime Minister, Hage Geingob has also recently launched Namibia’s electronic-Governance Strategic Plan for 2014 -2018, which is aiming at making government more efficient and effective in the service delivery through the use of information technology.

He said the electronic governance strategic plan will make government more accessible and accountable to its citizens through the use of information technology.

Pohamba thus encouraged the youth to make use of facilities availed to them to retrieve information about economic opportunities available in the country. 

He said that in many instances young people lose out on economic opportunities because the country does not have a reading culture. But, the young entrepreneurs would be in better positions should they adopt a reading culture.

“Knowledge is power. Let us access it to improve our lives and contribute to socio-economic development for our country,” said Pohamba.