Kameeta lashes at MPs against social grants and food bank

WINDHOEK, 24 MAY  – Minister of Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare, Zephania Kameeta has lashed out at members of the National Council (NC) who recently debated against the food bank and social grants.
The NC members, during a council session on Tuesday, debated that poverty cannot be eradicated by giving people free food and that there are too many people receiving social grants and this would lead to Namibia “becoming a country of social grants.”
Kameeta, while receiving a N.dollars 20 000 donation for the food bank programme from the African Heads of Mission Group (AHOMG) here on Wednesday said the councillors who made the remarks were probably speaking on behalf of their regions and he would therefore welcome letters from those councillors which will be forwarded to Cabinet as a submission regarding the grants.
“With the support of these letters from those particular NC members that are representing those particular regions, I will then delete the social grants to those regions,” he stressed.
He added that the matter must have been discussed with the beneficiaries in those regions where the councillors are from.
“It means that those particular regions are not interested in the social grants and I will take it to Cabinet, saying regions so and so are not interested in social grants,” Kameeta noted.
The food bank outreach programme that the ministry is in the process of expanding to all the regions could also be stopped in those particular regions, he said.
Handing over the donation, Kenya’s High Commissioner to Namibia, Isaac Njenga said AHMG saw it fit to give a portion of what they have to the MPESW to show support to the initiative of the president and the ministry to eradicate poverty and uplift the lives of people in the country.
“We feel and want to be a part of the alleviation of poverty,” Njenga said.

NAMPA