Africa-Press – Namibia. LANDLESS People’s Movement (LPM) leader Bernadus Swartbooi has labelled Namibia’s parliament as ineffective and called on president Hage Geingob to reflect on the alleged weaknesses of National Assembly speaker Peter Katjavivi.
Swartbooi said this at a media briefing in Windhoek on Thursday. He said the National Assembly “cannot just be for empty talk and passing the annual budget, and then it goes into limbo to suit the pace of the octogenarians [80-year-olds]”.
He said the LPM was not pleased with the little progress made by the legislature with the passing of critical bills into law. “Without making laws, the parliament is irrelevant and not leading society,” he said.
Political analysts have reiterated this in the past, saying the parliament has not been able to pass bills – except for the country’s annual budget. Last year, five bills were introduced in the National Assembly. This included the annual national budget. Of these, the assembly approved only the budget.
The proposed legislation not passed includes bills on access to information and on an amendment of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act. Swartbooi also called on Geingob to introduce a basic income grant.
He said starvation in Namibia is a humanitarian crisis. “Namibians are hungry,” he said. “This starvation is our second humanitarian crisis, the first being the homelessness imposed upon the Namibian people by the ruling regime.”
Swartbooi blamed this on the government, and called on the international community to assist Namibians by providing emergency food aid. Investment in massive agricultural irrigation in targeted area is also needed, “to relieve the impending starvation, which is nearing the level of that in Ethiopia in the 1980s,” he said.
Swartbooi expressed concern over traditional authorities not being sufficiently engaged in the process of urbanisation, and that the juriscidtion of these authorities is undermined.
“Equally, land and homeowners are not sufficiently consulted, and are harassed into selling their property for the sake of town expansion. Administration of the process of land acquisition for urban expansion is marred by open corrupt practices by some local authority councillors and their chief executive officers,” he said.
The LPM plans to take legal action against the government on ancestral land in the south, as well as the handling of the genocide matter, he further said. The party wants to set up a policy unit to review the county’s policies and propose alternatives in the National Assembly, he said.
For More News And Analysis About Namibia Follow Africa-Press
