Africa-Press – Namibia. The parliamentary standing committee on natural resources embarked on a capacity building workshop with stakeholders at Swakopmund on Monday morning.
Committee chairperson Tobie Aupindi highlighted the committee’s power as granted by the Constitution, and called for full participation from all stakeholders, as well as strengthened cooperation and ethical leadership.
Aupindi emphasised that parliamentary oversight is not an optional courtesy, but a constitutional mandate.
“Some institutions, including private or governmental, which are invited by the parliamentary committees even think they are doing a voluntary favour to the committees. No you are not,” he said.
He further warned that public institutions and corporate executives that fail to cooperate with parliamentary committees, and deliberately avoid appearances will be subpoenaed in the future.
“It is particularly very important to us to be on the same page with all the stakeholders. You carry out very important national responsibilities. Therefore, when we invite accounting officers, executive directors, directors and chief executives, we expect them to show up and not delegate these responsibilities to their distinguished junior officers,” he added.
The workshop, concluding on Saturday, aims to foster collaborative dialogue between the committee and key stakeholders on pressing issues such as electricity security, renewable energy development, green hydrogen, as well as oil and gas, environmental management, land use, tourism, and fisheries.
“The natural resource committee will demand for a people-centred, ethical leadership within the industry players in the natural resources sector, a leadership where captains are more people centred and not just profit mongers. We need to care about people over profits,” Aupindi said.
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