Africa-Press – Namibia. In her maiden speech, Independent Patriots for Change (IPC) Member of Parliament Ottilie Haitota implored the government to declare a housing state of emergency.
This is to speed up the construction of housing for the population, with a minimum of 100 000 units within four years.
“These and other developmental interventions proposed in the IPC manifesto will set us towards a path of growth and prosperity, where each and every Namibian benefits from the vast wealth of this great nation,” she said.
In Parliament, she implored the current government to incorporate several key developmental interventions set out in the IPC manifesto on key areas such as economic development and job-creation.
This also includes IPC’s call for the maintenance of fiscal discipline by keeping debt levels below 70%, and the average deficit below 30%. Haitota served as a local authority councillor for the town of Ongwediva for the past four years before assuming her duties as a Member of Parliament.
She raised that how local authorities are treated by the central government when it comes to the financing of capital projects, is of great concern. “Although the government has attempted to decentralise services through the enactment of the Decentralisation Enabling Act, the provisions of this legislation have proven to be insufficient, and more still needs to be done,” she remarked.
“We must be aggressive about the changes we want to see in the lives of our people. Every piece of legislation and motion that we pass must not speak to our individual benefit, but favour the most vulnerable people in our society. We must at all costs make laws in the best interest of the citizens of this country,” she added. The shadow minister of urban and rural development said to date, the ministry is still mandated with the payment of invoices on behalf of local authorities for capital projects.
“This counter-productive practice greatly hampers the speedy delivery of infrastructure development and serviced land by local authorities, which only serves to disadvantage the people on the grassroots level,” she noted.
Moreover, many families continue to lose their loved ones and valuable property because of the persistent crisis of informal settlement fires.
The Namibia 2023 Population and Housing Census Report reveals that 28.7% of households in Namibia are informal dwellings or shacks, of which 40% are in urban areas. “What is clear is that we have not positioned ourselves as a nation to fight the crisis of fires in our informal settlements. The provisions of the local authorities’ fire brigade services have not been given meaningful effect, and local authorities, therefore, find themselves struggling to maintain fire stations and ensure that they function optimally.
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