By: Ludorf Iyambo

 President Hage Geingob has, for the second year running, addressed parliament virtually.

 Last year, Geingob said he addressed parliament virtually because of Covid-19. 

However, this year, State House had initially announced that he would attend in person to officially open the seventh parliament’s fifth session.

 Members of Parliament were, however, surprised when Geingob failed to attend in person. Instead, he addressed the session virtually.

Geingob’s failure to attend in person infuriated MPs, including LPM deputy leader Henny Seibeb.

 Seibeb said it defeats the purpose of opening parliament and speaking to the nation on a video link.

 “It is a bad precedence that he is setting. It is undermining the institution of the parliament and shows disrespect to Peter Katjavivi as the speaker of the parliament”.

 Seibeb stressed that, as parliamentarians, they expect the bills to be debated well this year. The LPM member of parliament argued that they did not achieve anything the previous year. “Peter Katjavivi could not manage the house. We did not pass any important legislation apart from the national budgets. I hope this year, Katjavivi will set the pace. The chief whip of the majority party should also set the pace so that we debate the rape bill,” stated Seibeb. 

 The President of Swanu Tangeni Iyambo also showed his disappointment in the President addressing them virtually. 

Iyambo said he does not understand why the President could not show up.

 “If Covid-19 is the reason he did not show up, everyone is vulnerable to the diseases, so that cannot be the reason he could not show up,” said Iyambo 

 Iyambo stated that he wanted the President to be there so that he could answer questions that they had for him. 

 The member of the parliament and LPM parliamentarian spoke person Utaara Mootu told The Villager that their party is ready to debate and give contributions, especially on the issue of genocide and gender-based violence. 

 “I can promise the nation that we will bring in more ideas. People had seen even when we came to visit the President. We did not come empty-handed.

 We came with a policy document that looks at building a capacity of the state looking to issues such as green hydrogen that have become a hot topic, oil and gas investment, and we will look into so many cases,” said Mootu. 

 In his address, Geingob noted that many of the bills parliament are expected to tackle this year to transform the country’s socio-economic architecture. A majority of them are recurring from the previous year. Geingob attributed this to Covid-19.

 “Notwithstanding the Covid-19 independent intervening variable, in the future, many of these Bills are essential to address pressing problems in our society. 

“For this reason, we have to redouble our efforts to dispense with them as quickly as possible if we aim to make a difference in our people’s lives truly. Let us not delay progress but rather, let us all strive to work tirelessly to become catalysts for peace, safety, economic development and prosperity,” Geingob said.