Stefanus Nambara

NKURENKURU – New Kavango West chief regional officer Matheus Singambwe has placed poverty alleviation in the region among his chief priorities.

This will be done by working closely with key stakeholders to minimise the poverty index in the region by basing their approach on available official statistics that do not favour the region.

Singambwe, who was appointed to the position this month, said “we will define them to the best of our abilities, to which then we will need to strengthen collaborations with our key stakeholders, and craft inputs from each of these key stakeholders so that together we push and minimise the poverty index in our region”.

He indicated that his five-year term will be centred on three pillars, namely people, processes and systems, which are expected to be supported by accelerated, effective and efficient service delivery.

Under the processes pillar, he said the council will formulate and implement the region’s resident-focused strategic plan for the next five years to remove residents from the hardships the region is faced with.

“We will also need to strengthen public awareness of the council’s mandate from the current once a year to at least twice or quarterly visits to all the constituencies to engage our community members so that together we foster and enhance collaborations with communities, who are the owners of all government funding and programmes,” he said.

On the systems pillar, Singambwe stated that there are strategic areas that the council needs to look into, which are risk management and financial management.

“We have not been submitting our annual financial statements to the Office of the Auditor-General for auditing purposes. That makes us a high-risk council. This status quo is one that we would want to address immediately before the end of this financial year,” he said.

The pillar on people will focus on respect, love and trust among staff members to maintain collaboration, which he said is a non-negotiable action step in the council’s operations.

Singambwe is the previous council’s human resource management, finance and administration director.

He takes over from Mpasi Haing ura, who left the council in April 2023.

Since Haingura’s departure, the council has seen three different directors take turns to run its administrative affairs in acting capacities.

*Stefanus Nambara is an information officer at MICT in the Kavango West.