10 Apr 2018

A delegation from Zambezi Regional Council in Namibia is on a three-day benchmarking and exchange mission in Ngamiland District.

The delegation is on a visit to North West District Council to discuss areas of cooperation, exchange ideas and learn best practices with a view to improve their level of operations towards improving the livelihoods of their communities.

 In an interview, chief regional officer from Zambezi, Ms Regina Ndopu-Lubinda explained that as part of being in a global village, they found it fit to do some exchange visits with their neighbouring local authorities being North West and Chobe District Councils.

She said the purpose of the visit was to see which areas they could collaborate in terms of programmes, development initiatives, technical knowledge and to find if there was possibility of trade.

“We are here to learn, discuss issues of concern and see what we could offer to them and vice versa. We believe that we might experience the same challenges and North West could have better solutions and thus could benefit us,” she added.

Ms Ndopu-Lubinda was hopeful that their visit would bear fruit and also strengthen working relations between Namibia and Botswana, adding they were willing to see their partnership with the North West District Council growing for the benefit of both communities.

She said they had learnt a lot from their counterparts, especially on issues of governance and procurement systems.  She said they were impressed to learn that community involvement was vital in promotion of governance and also in procurement system.

Earlier on, deputy council secretary, Mr Cosmos Sewagodimo briefed the delegation about the history of local government in the country, which dated back to 1966.

He said the councils were brought into being by the Local Government District Council Act (Cap 40.01) and the Township Act (40.02), adding that the councils had the general duty to promote the order and good governance of their areas.

The delegation learnt about the structure of the local authorities and how they worked.

They also learnt that councillors and staff enjoyed a good working relationship.

Mr Sewagodimo said it was vital for the council staff to create, maintain and improve a two way line of communication between themselves and the political leaders.

Some officials from different departments under the council and some from central government had an opportunity to share their mandates and programmes with the delegation.

Chief finance officer from the council, Ms Charity Phuthego shared with them about sources of revenue, highlighting that revenue of council was generated in accordance with the Local Government Act, 2012 Section 64.

 She explained that approval of new sources of revenue was done by individual councils under the facilitation of the Finance Committee.

Once approved, she said the community would be informed accordingly about the need to start paying for that particular service. 

Further, she said the major source of revenue to councils was through grants from government known as Revenue Support Grant (RSG), which contributed about 90 per cent, while the rest of the revenue is from own income sources.

Ms Phutheo revealed that within the pool of own income sources, the main earner was interest on investments followed by rent from staff housing. 

She added that funds that were not yet spent either on projects or as recurrent budget were invested with various financial institutions and the Investment Panel was mandated to ensure that money invested had high returns. 

The delegation also learnt that the council had been experiencing a declining trend in revenue generated from own sources over the years.

“Due to low level of income generated from own revenue sources, it has been difficult to finance all the recurrent expenditures, hence continued dependence on government for financial support,” explained Ms Phuthego. ENDS