Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has called upon executive directors (EDs) to ensure that the public procurement guidelines, which call for tenders designated for youth, women, SMEs and Namibian-owned companies, are put into practice.

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila addressing EDs yesterday, said this would help young businesses gain access to markets for their products and develop into significant businesses.

“Let’s also use our procurement process to ensure that we provide an off-take market for locally produced products to support the local economy and create employment, especially to the youth on whom the burden of unemployment falls,” she said.

The PM said government has committed to supporting the establishment of 121 constituency youth enterprises, one in each constituency. 

Twenty-eight of these enterprises, she said, have so far been funded with a concessional loan from DBN. 

“The remaining 93 enterprises are still to be funded,” she told EDs.

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila also emphasised the need for timely execution of agreed interventions and promoting value for money so that government can achieve more with what it has. She also urged EDs to implement the performance management system to all levels of public institutions.

“The performance management system seeks to ensure that public institutions monitor and evaluate performance to ensure timely interventions to remedy the situation in case of slow progress, deviation or suboptimal or negative impact of adopted plans,” she said.

Furthermore, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said capacity building efforts must be targeted at strengthening the institutional capabilities to efficiently and effectively perform, including improving the skills and competencies of public officials to perform their duties. She said lack of coordination among government agencies impedes effective performance as it leads to delays, duplication of efforts and wastage of resources.  As operational managers, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said EDs should ensure alignment of activities and cooperation among government institutions

“EDs, as operational managers of these institutions should champion the implementation of the reform measures adopted by government, including streamlining processes to reduce bureaucracies, promoting innovation, optimising public procurement to support the economy and development of local enterprises, promoting career development in the public sector and promoting ethics and integrity,” the PM said.

“We must have a mind shift in the way we conduct government affairs in line with this year’s theme of reimaging.

“It is for this reason that the performance agreements of ministers and executive directors must be aligned and they should both be aligned with the national development goals, Harambee Prosperity Plan II, the strategic plans, and annual plans of government,” she added.

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila said the performance agreements should cascade down to staff, SOEs, and there should be regular monitoring and evaluation of performance to address weak and non-performance.