Africa-Press – Namibia. RETIRED ombudsman John Walters this week said his office achieved about 80% of its targets during his last year in office.
Walters said he successfully dealt with close to 2 600 complaints and requests he received during the year. This, he said, is an improvement of about 1% from the previous year.
He revealed this in the latest report tabled in the National Assembly this week. Before his retirement last month, Walters had been Namibia’s ombudsman since 2004.
He has now been replaced by Basilius Dyakugha, who was appointed following the first-ever public interview process for the position. Walters’ report states most of the cases during the last year were finalised without major investigations.
Others were finalised through “informal means”. “The obvious reason for not obtaining a 100% [solution] of complaints is the failure by individuals to respond to the ombudsman’s enquiries or requests for information,” he said. Walters has previously emphasised the trouble his office has with access to information from government offices.
“Unfortunately, executive directors of ministries, chief executive officers, and individuals are not responsive to the needs of the public when the ombudsman approaches them on behalf of the public. The ombudsman must use his power of subpoena to force them to deliver the requested information,” he explained in the report.
Earlier this year, Walters sued the minister of gender equality, poverty eradication and social welfare, Doreen Sioka, after she failed to indicate what steps she would take to ensure that places of safety and child detention centres are approved. This was at the end of March 2021.
“This usually happens after the expiration of our 90-day target which we set for ourselves for completion of an investigation and informing the complainant of the outcome. The ombudsman can accordingly not meet the justifiable expectation of the complainant at no fault of his own,” Walters said.
COMPLAINTS The majority of complaints last year related to maladministration, with 1 401 cases recorded. This is 394 cases fewer than those reported in 2019.
We hope this decline in cases is as a result of state-owned enterprises, agencies and organisations addressing issues successfully through internal complaint-resolution mechanisms or an improvement in overall service delivery,” he said.
Under maladministration, the Office of the Ombudsman recorded cases involving the stalling of police investigations due to missing documents, wrongful billing of municipal accounts, as well as long delays in processing overtime claims, among others.
Other complaints included 493 against and related to the Namibian Police, and 43 complaints about the Namibian Defence Force. The ombudsman also received 2 590 complaints relating to general immigration, including delays in the process of granting permanent residence and work permits/visas, or certificates of identity. In addition, 126 complaints about the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration, Safety and Security were registered.
