Outdated laws hamper service delivery

Minister of Urban and Rural Development Sophia Shaningwa has acknowledged that local authorities are failing to deliver services to the people because of old laws that are still in force.
The Association for Local Authorities in Namibia acting president, Leonard Jona, said the government had failed to act on recommendations made by the body as far back as 2006 to review outdated laws.
Speaking during ALAN’s congress at Oshakati this week, Jona said a local government reform paper was drafted with the aim of addressing problems affecting local authorities.
“We believe that this reform paper needed urgent and special attention from central government if they were serious with local government service delivery. I believe that we need fruitful and patriotic discussions in order for us to find common approaches and strategies for socio-economic development for local authorities,” Jona said.
He said ALAN had achieved nothing during the past ten years, but only made follow-ups on progress made by the central government in removing the stumbling blocks.
Jona further said that the government cannot expect local councils to deliver if there are polices and laws that are preventing them from doing their job efficiently and effectively.
According to Jona, every time they made inquiries, they were informed that their request had not yet been finalised. Jona said the delay has resulted in serious economic threats such as high unemployment and lack of investment opportunities.
“Capacity constraints like deficiencies in human and organisational capacity have affected the quality of governance and decision-making of some local authorities, and because of their financial capacity, they are unable to recruit certain key professionals resulting in skills deficit in local authorities,” he said.
Shaningwa said she was aware of the issues raised by ALAN and promised to attend to them urgently. “When I took over the ministry, I also took full responsibility of everything that is problematic in the sector, even those that came a long time before I was minister.
“Some of the issues addressed here need to be digested and comprehensively dealt with. I will promise you that I am going to look and review all the issues you raised here today,” Shaningwa vowed.
She further told local authority leaders that the responsibility they were entrusted with called for bold leadership coupled with the necessary support from strategic partners to ensure that towns deliver on their constitutional mandate.
“All of us here know that we have municipalities that are functioning very well and councillors who are also performing their duties efficiently. Let us work together to leave a legacy for which the future generations will call us blessed and will not curse us,” Shaningwa said.

ILENI NANDJATO