Information minister Emma Theofelus has lashed out at her staff members who constantly attend workshops and do not show visible improvement or change, saying such funds could be used for infrastructural development.

Theofelus, while addressing her staff during the MICT year-opening ceremony in the capital on Monday, said staff should actively apply the knowledge gained from internal workshops to improve performance and service delivery.

She added that continued workshops would be unnecessary in the absence of visible improvement or change, noting that workshops and training programmes would be reviewed if staff returned without gaining new skills or knowledge.
“I would rather use that money to go build network towers, that is a better investment than investing in staff members attending workshops and training every day, every other month

You are never in the office because a report cannot be done because you are attending a workshop. We’ll monitor, we will see if we will have workshops and training this financial year, depending on the deliverables and outputs of those workshops; otherwise, there’s no point in wasting taxpayers’ money,” she said.

Theofelus further called on MICT staff to apply common sense, act with urgency, and improve their overall performance to ensure efficient public service delivery.

The minister went on to express dissatisfaction with the ministry’s 44% score by the 2025 Customer Service Charter Audit, saying that: “We are here to serve every Namibian at any given time within a reasonable time. We should take our responsibility as public servants with utmost seriousness and commitment.”
-Nampa