The public should help fight corruption: Geingob

WINDHOEK, 11 APR – President Hage Geingob has called on Namibians to take an active role of being whistleblowers and reporting incidences of graft in order to win the war against corruption in the country.
Geingob said this during his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the capital on Wednesday.
According to him, corruption is the biggest enemy in the country and in order to fight it a robust governance architecture, underpinned by the principles of accountability and transparency, in the war against poverty is required.
He added that the Whistleblower Protection and Witness Protection Acts were passed in September 2017 to strengthen the legal instruments.
“Even though the implementation mechanism for this legislation is not yet operational, this should not deter the public from submitting reports of corruption to relevant authorities,” Geingob pleaded.
The president emphasised that his government is committed to support governance fundamentals by benchmarking against international governance indices.
Transparency International rated Namibia in the top tier, at position 53 out of 176 countries surveyed, and the fifth least corrupt country on the African continent in 2017.
Similarly, Geingob said a “new Africa” is on the march and has declared war against corruption, exemplified by the adoption of the African Union theme for the year 2018, ‘Winning the fight against corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation’.
Geingob, however, expressed worry that the media assumes that Government is not doing enough to curb corruption, despite numerous cases where decisive action has been taken to demonstrate political will.
“In 2017, 60 cases have been investigated and handed over to the Prosecutor-General by the Anti-Corruption Commission, with recommendations to prosecute and where there are flaws in institutional processes and systems, we have adopted additional mechanisms to identify loopholes and facilitate the reporting of irregularities.”
He alluded that the media has an obligation to highlight what the government is doing right and wrong on all fronts, as it is in the interest of those who elected them to know what government is doing.
This year’s SONA was aimed at, amongst others, accounting on the implementation status of national developmental programmes for the period under review and informing priorities for the year ahead against the thematic pillars.
NAMPA