Senior officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration recently held a closed-door meeting with Omusati Governor Sophia Shaningwa to iron out issues pertaining to allegations of poor service delivery at its Outapi office. The meeting last week in Windhoek between Shaningwa and Home Affairs Minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana came amidst threats by the Omusati governor to organise a mass demonstration in front of the Home Affairs office in Outapi. During the official opening of this year’s Omusati Regional Council last month, Shaningwa accused Home Affairs and Immigration officials in her region of being “anti-progress agents” and of sabotage. Shaningwa at the time charged that people in Omusati Region have no peace because of poor service delivery at Home Affairs that included denying national documents to Namibians who speak Oshiwambo with an accent. Speaking to Namibia Sun yesterday after she and her delegation returned from Windhoek, Shaningwa said the meeting was a success. Shaningwa said she and her team decided to travel to Windhoek to seek a meeting with Iivula-Ithana and her senior officials after numerous attempts to have a meeting with the minister in Outapi failed. “We ironed out issues that were placing us in a predicament and an agreement was reached between my office and the office of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration. Since the problems in Outapi are not confined to the Omusati Region, it was decided to have a meeting between all the four O-regions to resolve the backlog issue once and for all,” said Shaningwa. Before the meeting with Iivula-Ithana, Shaningwa held another meeting in Outapi on the same issue and invited members of the traditional authority, police officers, Home Affairs officials, immigrations officers, church leaders and councillors. The Deputy Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration, Elia Kaiyamo, also showed up unexpectedly. During that meeting, which was held earlier this month, over 40 people in the Omusati Region who were previous denied national documents testified in front of Kaiyamo of their nightmare experiences at his ministry. “I wanted the people to come and testify so that people don’t think I’m just talking for the sake of creating issues. The deputy minister sat through the entire meeting and was able to interact with the people during that meeting,” said Shaningwa. Following the success of that meeting, Shaningwa then decided to take the issue to the minister herself so that she “may hear it from the horse’s mouth.” “I needed the issue resolved because if we continue on this path, everyone will be affected. The children of the parents who do not have IDs will in turn also not get IDs because their parents don’t have all the documents. So this issue needed to be dealt with as a matter of urgency,” Shaningwa said. OSHAKATI MERJA IILEKA
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