By Petronella Sibeene
WINDHOEK
Veteran Affairs ministers from Mozambique and Zimbabwe are in Windhoek to share information with Namibia on how their countries successfully implemented and addressed demands for monetary compensation by former freedom fighters.
Policy Analyst in the Ministry of Veteran Affairs, Natangwe Hamutumwa, yesterday told New Era that Feliciano Gundana from Mozambique and Sydney Sekeramayi from Zimbabwe are in the country and would exchange ideas and their experiences.
Mozambique and Zimbabwe have considerable expe-rience in compensation methods for veterans.
Hamutumwa said information gathered from the meeting would assist Namibia in formulating a strategy in which policies of the Ministry of Veteran Affairs will be spelt out.
He said Namibia would be interested in knowing where and how they started, how their institutions responsible for the veterans evolved and where they are now.
“If doing something new, it is always good to look at how others did it before coming up with our own model,” said Hamutumwa.
The ministerial level meeting is scheduled to start at 08h30 and ends at 16h00 tomorrow.
About 20 participants are expected to be at this exchange of ideas.
While these countries are said to have applied successful measures in dealing with veteran matters, Hamutumwa said Namibia will not copy their models but rather see how best the country can address the situation considering Namibia’s needs. Last month, the Veteran’s Bill was tabled in Parliament.
This is not the first time Namibia is consulting regional countries in matters concerning veteran affairs. In drafting the Bill, indepth studies were carried out on the legislative responses of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Algeria, Vietnam and South Africa.
The Bill defines a “veteran” as a member of the liberation forces; a person who consistently and persistently participated or engaged in any political, diplomatic or underground activity in the furtherance of the liberation struggle; and a person who, owing to his or her participation in the liberation struggle, was convicted – whether in Namibia or elsewhere – for any offence closely connected to the liberation struggle and sentenced to imprisonment.
The Minister of Veterans Affairs, Dr Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, said this piece of legislation affirms the State’s recognition of the important role veterans played in the attainment of the country’s independence and acceptance of a “special responsibility to take care of the welfare of veterans and dependants of veterans”.
The Bill attaches importance to the promotion of living standards of veterans and helping them to lead a normal life.
Once legislation is in place and the beneficiaries identified, proper areas for assis-tance will be thrashed out, Tjiriange said.
The Bill makes provision for the establishment of a veterans fund from which financial assistance will be provided to veterans and their dependants and assist them in economic projects.
The Bill further makes provision for the registration of veterans and their dependants.
There are an estimated 40ǟ