President of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) Bernadus Swartbooi said the reason for Bills being withdrawn or revisited is due to the lack of public consultation from the ministries’ side.

During an interview with Nampa on Tuesday, Swartbooi said President Hage Geingob needs to look to his ministers to answer the question of why so many Bills are either withdrawn or carried over to the next year.

He said this after the Head of State’s speech at the opening of Parliament on Tuesday, where he also addressed the issue of Bills being carried over to the next year, saying that he does not know why this happens.

Geingob added that more of an effort should be made to speed up the legislative process.

“I wish to encourage you to redouble your efforts to ensure that there is a regular quorum in Parliament so that you are able to speed up the legislative process,” said Geingob.

Swartbooi further said that ministers do not think of the implications of their amendments and laws, so when it comes to debates they withdraw the Bill and the process of bringing that Bill into law is reverted back to legal drafters.

“Ministers do not do public consultations and they are not able to answer questions that come as a result of a robust debate and then they kill the Bill because they have not considered the relevant social, economic, cultural and political issues,” Swartbooi said after referring to the ministers as “floating around”.

The LPM president continued to say the ministries that are poor in public consultations are the justice and lands ministries.

Swartbooi said Geingob should be concerned if he has not signed many Bills into law during the year.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency