Speaker of the National Assembly, Professor Peter Katjavivi, has confirmed receiving a petition from a group of inhabitants of the Zambezi Region who have proposed a referendum on the Zambezi Region due to alleged political matters there.
Katjavivi confirmed receipt of the petition in the minutes compiled on Tuesday by the National Assembly.
The speaker said the group that petitioned the National Assembly calls itself the Caprivi Concerned Group. They submitted the petition to his office on 29 March 2022.
“The petition is calling on the National Assembly to exercise its powers in terms of Article 63(2)(g) of the Namibian Constitution to initiate, approve or decide to hold a referendum on the Caprivi strip, for the natives there or customary people to themselves democratically and constitutionally decide whether or not they want to be independent from Namibia,” stated the minutes.
Katjavivi will submit the petition to the parliamentary standing committee dealing with petitions.
Once this committee considers their petition, it will submit its recommendations to the Standing Committee on Rules and Orders and Internal Arrangements for a referral to the relevant parliamentary standing committee for investigations.
The parliamentary standing committee for investigations will report back to the National Assembly on the way forward.
The Caprivi Concerned Group was established in 2018, and is keenly advocating for the the Zambezi Region to secede from the rest of Namibia.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency