The delegation, consisting of German MPs from the financial and budget committee, met their Namibian counterparts from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts, under Chairman Johan de Waal, for an hour yesterday at the Parliament buildings in Windhoek.

"We seek closer co-operation and exchanges with MPs from Germany, but unfortunately no bilateral Parliamentary friendship group exists yet," De Waal told the 14-member delegation led by Herbert Frankenhauser.

"We have a Parliamentary group for southern Africa at the Bundestag (Parliament)," Frankenhauser said, "so we can now direct the focus also on Namibia.

But we will look into establishing a Namibia-German parliamentary friendship group."

Both delegations then discussed different parliamentary systems, the influence parliamentary committees can have on the Executive and if they can carry out the control function over it.

The Germans are accompanied by several military and foreign affairs officials to assess the success of military aid in the form of equipment, technical training experts and medical support to the Namibia Defence Force.

Germany has provided N$130 million to the NDF since Independence.

The existing military support programme ends this year and must be renewed.

The visitors will travel to the military bases at Grootfontein and Walvis Bay before returning to Berlin this weekend.

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