A member of the National Council, Damian Nakambare, has expressed disappointment over a number of misspelt names on war veterans’ tombstones.
Nakambare, speaking in the National Council recently, alleged that a certain company contracted by government to erect tombstones in his constituency misspelled war veterans’ names – an error he said would have been avoided if his office was contacted for verification.
“I want to express my disappointment in the way the ministry is conducting its activities in the constituencies and regions. As councillor I was not informed on this important activity and as a result names of the beneficiaries were misspelled and in some cases omitted by the service provider,” Nakambare told fellow lawmakers when contributing to the defence and veterans affairs budget vote.
“These are minor mistakes that could have been detected and corrected if the office of the regional councillors and members of the family were informed on the erection of these tombstones of our departed war veterans.”
Nakambare therefore requested the directorate of veterans affairs to coordinate and consult with the regional leadership and family members of the departed war veterans when erecting such tombstones in the constituencies and regions.
Alternatively, he said, the directorate should consider giving tenders to the local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that might be familiar with the meaning and spelling of the names.
“By doing this we are also sharing the national cake by empowering many SMEs and not to confine ourselves to one company that does this activity in many regions,” said the MP.
Nakambare went on to commend government for taking care of the country’s veterans in terms of providing them with housing, medication, counselling services and tombstones.
“While recognising the good work by the Division of Veterans Affairs to address the basic needs of the war veterans in the region, equally, I want to inform the ministry that some of our war veterans are not benefitting from the war veteran scheme,” he said.
According to him this can be attributed to various reasons and includes lack of national documents as well as lack of information pertaining to medical assistance, rehabilitation programmes and veteran status. Therefore, he said, the ministry should intensify its awareness campaign to sensitise all veterans on their entitlement. He said, so far, the ministry has erected 24 tombstones in the Kavango West region.