Speaker of the National Assembly, Prof. Peter Katjavivi says the Covid 19 pandemic has severely disrupted outreach activities of the parliament.

Katjavivi said this when he met the deputy minister of Information and Communication Technology, Emma Theofelus on Wednesday.

The Speaker noted that outreach activities are one of the ways parliament has been reaching the community at the grassroots level to educate them about the role of the legislature and its importance in a democratic society.

“We recently received a bus as a donation from the Chinese government to use in our outreach activities but due to Covid, it has been sitting idle. Through outreach we are able to interact with members of the community as their representatives and educate them about the function of parliament”, said Katjavivi.

Theofilus, Namibia’s youngest member of parliament stated that institutional collaboration was instrumental, particularly during the current crisis of Covid 19.

“We need to find a way to continuously work together as institutions in order to fulfil our mandate,” said the deputy minister.

She revealed that her Ministry has regional offices replete with ICT equipment as well as multi-purpose community centres in remote areas that could be a transmission belt for information sharing.

Theofelus who was adamant that Namibia was ready for the fourth industrial revolution, further added that her ministry has decided to turn the Covid 19 communication centre, that is meant to engage the public on key issues related to Covid 19, into a fully-fledged government information centre responsible for dispelling misinformation and disinformation.

“We have decided to turn the centre into a government information centre to assist with a positive image of government since there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there. Parliament could also use the centre for information sharing whenever necessary,” implored the deputy minister.